By Senior Editor – Kris Smith (@croncast)

My favorite elements from the Seesmic event today were the presentations by Shiv Singh and Steve Rubel.

They both did great jobs in their own right. My computer died before I could finish my notes on Rubel’s presentation today, so I am running with what Singh laid down.

Singh shared some interesting information about his work at Razofish for clients that are engaging in social media. Unlike other events that I’ve attended where panelist say that social media is too nebulous to measure, Singh has developed a formula to help his clients.

This method relies on monitoring social media to find influence within a community to gain access to it as a whole. The goal is to predict when customers will come together as a group and then dissipate. Razofish calls it Social Influence Marketing (SIM).

He demonstrated how they can use it as a leading indicator to aid clients in predicting a change in sales or sentiment.

Their method works on this equation: SIM score = Conversation Share + Sentiment*   *adjusted for influence. Singh didn’t give the method for how they measure for adjusted influence, but I’m not sure anyone in the audience expected him to – it’s part of the secret sauce.

The takeaway from his presentation is that agencies should be working to deliver social influence marketing and not social media marketing to clients. The focus shouldn’t be on the platform but on the method of communication and how to measure brand sentiment over time.

He shared some numbers toward the end of his presentation that connected consumers will tell 20 people on average about products that they have purchased. And that 1 in 10 adults are sharing product recommendations online through social networks. Ending that section with a proclamation that, “we are never going to buy a car again alone“.

If you would like to see the accompanying slides, they are up at SlideShare for review.

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