Welcome to the SocMetrics blog. We're honored to already have exchanged ideas with many of the top social media innovators and thought leaders, and we'd like to continue the conversation.

We set out to create something that matched our experiences, that would be useful to us and our friends as entrepreneurs in getting the word out about ground-breaking new products that should see the light of day. In the process, we found that the needs were much greater than we knew, that the social media space is evolving so fast that agencies and brands could use our help, too. That's where we are focused now.

Why a new Influence tool? Good question. We believe we have a fresh take on what matters, but you will be the judge of that.

What We Believe: The Influence Bill of Rights

• Influence Is Relative (to every topic and niche)

  Sure Justin Bieber is popular, but would you trust him with a tip on a budget-friendly family vacation, a CRM solution, or a retirement plan?

• Everyone Can Be An Influencer

  So maybe you're not a Rock star, not with a guitar anyway. But we know many rockstars in their own genre. There are rockstars in Food, rockstars in Travel, rockstars in Biotech, and rockstars in Cloud Computing. Influencers come in all colors, shapes and sizes, and are tied together by one thing- Passion (and deep knowledge) about the topics they care about.

• Numbers Lie, So Look Beyond the Surface

  See that 'nobody' in that corner of the blogosphere? With "only" 200 twitter followers and a tiny blog readership? What do you know, it turns out that Whole Foods, Martha Stewart and Rocco Dispirito are fans. And that blogger says, in the immortal words of The Contours, "Do you love me, now that I can dance?"

• Influence is Not a Toy

  We're grateful to everyone in the space for bringing attention to it, respect. Our focus, though, is on people's natural behavior. We want to create win-wins, where influencers in niche topics hear about things they care about, and innovative companies making good products are rewarded with greater word of mouth and social attention. We're not going to give you points for it, sorry. We don't want to warp behavior. Do what you do, we already love you for it.

Thanks

Thanks for reading and thanks for taking a look. Coming up on this blog we'll go deeper on some of the use cases our customers are using SocMetrics for, and some timely influencer lists like our recent Top 25 (Other) Women Who Rock Social Media.

We know it's a noisy, complicated, fast-moving space, and we appreciate the chance to share our take on it. We're already working with top brands and agencies which is great validation, and we're continuing to innovate and listen to how we can help further. Please sign up for our private beta and we'd love to get your feedback.