On Pulsar, influencers are defined as authors who not only produce a high volume of content but also have a greater than average visibility or exposure, and exert influence around a particular subject. Unlike traditional metrics, we contextualise influence by topic, assessing how impactful people are about a specific subject and within specific social networks.

To evaluate influence, we consider a range of factors, including an author's reach, credibility, trustworthiness, and network quality. We analyze the type of content they produce or publish, allowing you to identify both promoters and detractors. This in-depth analysis enables you to identify and target your social communications precisely at those users who are most likely to amplify your message and those who have the potential to cause harm to your brand.

By leveraging this type of contextual influence analysis, you can identify key influencers within your industry or topic area and develop targeted influencer marketing campaigns. This allows you to reach a highly engaged and relevant audience, increasing brand awareness and driving engagement with your products or services.

You will find information about the Top Influential Voices or Contributors in your search in the Audience Insights section. Here we display the list of people who are most influential about the subject matter in terms of how vocal they are, how big their audience is, how much exposure they get, and how trustworthy or credible they are.

We therefore rank Influencers using the following metrics.

When examining Influence by Volume, we're focusing on authors who are highly active in producing content related to a specific topic. These authors tend to generate a large number of tweets, posts or articles about the subject, making them highly vocal within the conversation. However, while being active and vocal can indicate a level of influence, it's not necessarily a reliable measure on its own. The true measure of influence is also determined by the size of their audience, as an individual's impact can be limited without a substantial following. Passionate discussions alone may not necessarily translate to significant influence without a broad and engaged audience to amplify their message.

When examining Influence by Media Reach, we're looking at authors who have a significant online following across a range of media platforms. This metric encompasses authors who produce content across the media monitoring landscape, including online news journalists, print journalists, TV, radio and podcast presenters. These people have a large and engaged audience, which enables them to have a greater impact on the conversation around a particular topic. The size of their audience is a key factor in their influence, as their content is consumed by a large number of people, regardless of how often they produce content. Unlike authors who are highly active and produce a lot of content, these types of influencers only need to produce one online news article or podcast episode to reach a wide and diverse audience. This means they can have a significant impact on shaping public opinion and driving conversation around a particular topic, making them an essential component of any media monitoring or influencer marketing strategy.

When examining Influence by Social Impressions, we focus on authors who have a significant following across social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. This metric differs from Media Reach, which considers authors across traditional media outlets. Authors who generate the highest social impressions have a large and engaged audience that interacts with their content by sharing and retweeting it, increasing the reach of their message beyond their followers.

The size and engagement of their followers are key factors in their influence because their content is consumed and shared by a much larger number of people, including those who don't necessarily follow them but follow their followers. This means these authors can shape public opinion and drive conversation around a particular topic, making them an essential component of any influencer marketing strategy. Unlike vocal authors who rely on the volume of posts and articles they publish, accounts with a large engaged audience only need to tweet once and generate a considerable amount of social impressions. Take, for example, some of the most followed accounts on X, such as @ElonMusk, @BarackObama, or @justinbieber. They have hundreds of millions of followers, and one tweet alone from any of these authors has the potential to generate billions of social impressions. As such, authors who are influential by their social exposure have a significant impact on increasing brand awareness and driving engagement with a targeted audience.

Pulsar's proprietary ranking algorithm, Visibility, measures impact by assigning a score to each post, article, or broadcast clip, which is then aggregated by author to determine their overall Visibility score. When examining Influence by Visibility we prioritise authors who tick the following boxes:

While Influence by Reach or Influence by Impressions can indicate someone's influence, Pulsar's Influence by Visibility metric takes into account the type of content and platform on which it is published, recognising that not all platforms are created equal. This makes our Visibility metric one of the most reliable methods for assessing an author's influence around a particular subject.

When assessing Influencers by Credibility, we focus on authors who are writing for specific outlets, typically journalists, and those who are sharing media coverage on social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Reddit. By examining the frequency with which these authors publish or share content from trustworthy or unreliable sources, you can identify users who pose a risk of spreading misinformation. This method provides a deeper understanding of the credibility and reputation of people who discuss your brand or share content related to your brand, enabling you to identify and mitigate potential risks effectively.