The document outlines a case study of a partnership between Pivot and Appinions, focusing on the use of Appinions' influencer exchange to develop outbound marketing programs. It describes how the platform enabled identification, analysis, engagement, and monitoring of influencers across various topics, providing actionable insights and data for marketing strategies. The findings suggest that Appinions is a valuable tool for enhancing outreach efforts and understanding social influence in marketing.

1.
Appinions
Case
Study
Summary&
Setup
As
part
of
a
partnership
with
Appinions,
Pivot
developed
outbound
marketing
programs
utilizing
Appinion’s
Influencer
Exchange.
The
Influence
Exchange
generates
a
uniquely
three-­‐dimensional
and
targeted
picture
of
social
influence.
As
Appinions
describes
it:
“While
influencers
have
always
played
a
key
role
within
the
media
landscape,
the
rise
of
social
media
has
made
it
increasingly
challenging
to
identify
and
engage
with
them.
“With
blogs,
Twitter
and
Facebook
attracting
more
attention,
there
has
been
a
democratization
of
the
influencer
landscape.
Anyone
can
become
an
influencer,
which
is
a
contrast
to
the
pre-­‐social
media
days
when
the
influencers
were
a
small,
well-­‐defined
group.
“Appinions’
Influencer
Exchange
tackles
the
influencer
‘challenge’
by
giving
public
relations
agencies
and
brands
a
powerful
and
innovative
platform
to
identify,
analyze,
engage
and
monitor
the
leading
influencers
based
on
topics,
issues
or
products/services.”
What
We
Did
Using
the
Appinions
Influencer
Exchange,
we
created
specific
keyword
filters
related
to
eight
topics
drawn
from
the
content
framework
created
for
Pivot
2011
by
Brian
Solis,
Pivot’s
host
and
executive
producer.
We
also
used
the
theme
of
Pivot
2011,
“The
Social
Consumer,”
as
a
search
filter.
These
topics
included
in
our
test
were:
1) Audience
with
an
audience
of
audiences
2) Brands
are
not
created,
they’re
co-­‐created
3) Digital
Darwinism

2. 4) Disruptive
technologies
5) The
new
media
landscape
6) The
people
formerly
known
as
the
customers
7) ROI
8) Social
CRM
9) The
Social
Consumer
With
the
help
of
the
Appinions
team,
we
created
a
standing
Boolean
query
that
translated
each
of
these
topics
into
specific
filtering
criteria.
For
example:
The
“Brands
are
created…”
query
=
“Crowdsourcing
OR
(social
AND
infrastructure
AND
engage)
OR
"adaptive
business"
OR
(human
AND
seismograph)
OR
(customer
AND
empowerment)”
Attendee
Outreach
Campaign
Using
these
queries,
we
went
into
the
Appinions
database
of
millions
of
news
articles,
blog
posts,
social
networks,
forums
as
well
as
radio
and
TV
transcripts.
In
just
a
few
hours,
the
Appinions
platform
was
able
to
crawl
the
database
for
all
nine
topics
and
returned
769
targets
with
a
high
degree
of
influence
related
specifically
to
those
nine
topic
areas.
Influencer
Analysis
The
Influencer
Exchange
platform
gave
us
not
only
a
list
of
targets
with
influencer
scores;
it
also
generated
a
highly
detailed
deep
dive
into
each
topic’s
unique
space.
We’ll
be
using
the
“Brands
are
not
created,
They’re
Co-­‐Created”
topic
for
illustrative
purposes
but
found
similarly
deep
levels
of
information
for
all
nine
topics.
Here
are
top
five
individual
influencers
based
on
the
Appinions
scoring
system
and
including
both
people
and
organizations.

3.
We
can
see
the
volume
of
opinions
throughout
time
for
all
influencers
by
topic:

4. And,
once
we
explored
the
basics,
we
could
view
the
list
of
influencers
filtered
by
whether
they
are
individuals
or
organizations,
and
by
whether
their
influence
stems
from
earned,
temporal,
or
long
tail
activities.
We
could
also
look
into
not
only
the
scores
and
sentiments
but
the
specific
opinions
about
each
topic
by
each
influencer
without
navigating
away
from
the
Exchange
interface.
Part
of
the
influencer
page
filtered
with
just
organizations:

5. Topic
Analysis
Beyond
individual
analysis
for
each
influencer,
Appinions
gives
a
thorough
and
useful
analysis
on
the
topic
itself
and
its
related
informational
space.
Here
are
the
linked
topics
–concepts
that
are
frequently
brought
up
when
discussing
“Brand
Co-­‐Creation.”
These
are
basically
keywords
associated
with
the
topic:
Here
are
the
group
interests
for
“Brands
are
not
Created…”
This
is
a
list
of
other
concepts
our
influencers
are
actually
interested
in
and
talking
about:

6. We
were
also
able
to
export
a
report
on
the
publishers
covering
the
space,
sorted
by
highest
frequency
of
opinions:
Brands are Not Created - They're Co-
Created
Publisher
Opinion
frequency
Twitter
134
MailService.com
60
MarkoWare.com
54
Marko.us
46
Mashable!
13
iRevolution
13
GigaOM
12
Girls
In
Tech
10
Betha’s
Blog
10
Fast
Company
10
Masters
of
Media
9
TechCrunch
9
Planet
Geospatial
9
Ulitzer
9
rethinck
by
Jason
Wilson
8
Triple
Pundit:
People,
Planet,
Profit
8
SwBratcher's
Posts
8
Latest
Marketing
News
from
Marktd.com
8
iCommunity
Health
Center
Go
International
News
7
Visible
Banking
7

7. And,
finally,
we
were
given
an
option
to
create
an
SEO
optimization
report
to
help
us
position
our
SEO
best
practices
for
each
topic:
Brands are Not Created - They're Co-
Created
keyword
Opinion
frequency
Social
Media
57
Consumer
Brand
Marketing
32
Wikipedia
25
crowdsource
21
AntiSpec
12
The
Daily
12
English
11
San
Francisco
11
Microsoft
9
The
New
York
Times
9
designer
8
Home
Depot
8
monetary
compensation
8
crowdsourcing
7
German
7
LinkedIn
7
New
Orleans
7
Youtube
7
Amazon
6
crowd
help
6
What
We
Learned
Appinions
Influence
Exchange
was
released
just
weeks
before
the
2011
Pivot
Conference.
As
a
result,
we
were
not
able
to
implement
programs
as
complete
and
rich
as
the
data
we
uncovered
would
allow.
We
did,
however,
generate
a
long
list
of
marketing
programs
we
wanted
to
run
using
the
Exchange.
Our
feeling
based
on
the
test
is
that
the
Appinions
Influencer
Exchange
creates
a
unique
and
highly
actionable
set
of
data
about
influencers
related
to
extremely
granular
information
areas
along
with
a
startlingly
rich
set
of
corollary
information
about
how
that
influence
is
generated
and
relates
to
other
influencers
in
the
set.
For
that
reason,
we
believe
that
Appinions
is
an
exciting
new
social
marketing
tool
and
one
we
intend
to
use
actively
in
the
outreach
for
Pivot
2012.