Brokerage firm E.F. Hutton was best known in the 1970’s and ’80s by the advertising tag line, “When E.F. Hutton Talks, People Listen.” Its television commercials typically involved a conversation between two people. When one of them mentioned his broker was E.F. Hutton, the others around them would suddenly stop what they were doing and listen intently to the one who was talking (client of E. F. Hutton).
If you are talking on social media, are people listening? Do you have “E.F. Hutton” credibility among your community of followers? Are you posting content on social media networks like Twitter and Facebook people are acting on? How do you know?
One way to tell is by measuring your Klout. Klout is an online measure of your brand’s social media influence. It measures influence based on your ability to drive action. The more influential you are, the higher your Klout score. As of June 2013, the average Klout score was 40.
Why is online social media influence important?
As you may recall from the E.F. Hutton television commercials, the market landscape included so many competing sources of financial advice it was often difficult to break through the noise. The same is true of today’s highly competitive content marketplace. Even if your content is amazing, it won’t have an impact if no one is listening.
Additional Reading
Photography Source: From EF Hutton Commercial, circa 1970, YouTube