The New Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers Of 2016 List

In 2016, 71% of businesses plan to spend more in digital marketing. The demand for digital marketers is sky-high, and for this reason Onalytica.com's recent list, the Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers of 2016, has turned a lot of heads. (And it was a very pleasant surprise to learn that I was on it, ranked #77! What an honor to be on the same list as the likes of Jeff Bullas and Ann Handley!)

All accolades aside, this list has turned heads for more than just featuring the big names like Bullas, Hurley and Handley that made it to the top. It has also turned heads because of its excellent methodology for measuring the impact of an influencer. And, frankly, this is what makes lists like these important. They provide a tangible service. They provide actionable research that both clearly draws the shape of an industry's network at its strong points, but also informs the reader how to become a more effective influencer and how to find the right influencer for your influencer program. (And that key is actually very simple: it's more about the quality of your connections, not the quantity.)

A Look at the List's Methodology

Onalytica analyzed 90 days of data, including:

1,550,237 tweets
114,909 engaged users
455,981 engaged tweets

Let's start our dive into the methodology with the list's helpful introductory statement:

The PageRank based methodology we use to extract influencers on a particular topic (tweets mentioning “Digital Marketing” OR digitalmarketing in this case) takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives. These calculations are independent of a user's number of followers, but we do filter our lists based on how much a user is engaged in the conversation.

In Onalytica's more in-depth post, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: What's the Point of the Study and Report, we get more depth on the methodology behind the statement above. The following is my concise summary of it:

Scores aren't the end-all, be-all: Onalytica cites the popularity of scores like Klout, Kred, and PeerIndex that assign an influence “score” to people. But these generalized scores don't answer the most important question: how will these influencers actually help you achieve the specific goals of your influencer program? These scores can be useful for quick reference, but they're just the beginning of the picture.
Measuring actual influence, not just socialization: There is a difference between an average influencer and a key influencer. An average influencer will have a huge social media following, but anything they post rarely changes behavior or travels outside that self-contained bubble to affect the rest of the industry. As Onalytica writes: “[it] comes down to whether your influencers are actually changing the behaviour or actions of your target audience as opposed to simply re-publishing content on the Internet.”
Going beyond an influencer's primary circle: The list's methodology strives “to assess an individual’s potential to drive earned media attention beyond their primary network of connections.” This often means that a key influencer will affect voices in the news media or other broad platforms beyond social media including audiences that exist outside of the influencer's immediate industry.
Asking the right questions: It's better to ask, “Will it help me achieve my objective to engage with this influencer?” than “What is this influencer's score?” A number won't tell you if that person is hitting on all the points above or if the person is a right fit for your influencer program. Onalytica knocks it out of the park with this advice: “The key then is to set out credible measures of success which are linked to your desired outcomes, and start to understand which activities and which influencers are making a real difference.”

Onalytica's list takes all of these factors above into account in its methodology. It's about the quality of influence, not necessarily the quantity of someone's followers or their social scores.

Who Made the Top Five?

With lists like the Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers of 2016, it's always fun to look at the profiles of the top names. Here's a breakdown (from their Twitter bios) of the top five:

Jeff Bullas: Content Marketing Influencer, Social Media Marketing Strategist & Speaker, Forbes Top 10 Social Media Influencer, #1 Global Business Blog. Sydney, Australia, jeffbullas.com.
Sam Hurley: Growth Hacker + Social Media Influencer in SEO | CRO | PPC ➤ M. Director optim-eyez.co.uk.
Ann Handley: Head of Content at MarketingProfs; author of the WSJ bestseller, Everybody Writes. I'm waging a war on mediocrity in content marketing, http://www.annhandley.com.
Ashley Friedlein: Founder, Econsultancy: Chairman, Ably: https://www.ably.io/ Author, speaker, blogger on digital, marketing & ecommerce. London, UK, econsultancy.com.
Rocco Baldassarre: I work @ZebraAdverts. Speaker, Digital Marketer, Microsoft MVP, husband, travel enthusiast, Italian. Contributor @Entrepreneur @SMExaminer @SEJournal @SEMrush Aventura, FL, Step by Step Facebook Campaign Creation