Last week Seth Godin, as he often does, posed an important ‘what if?’ with huge implications for fundraisers and advocacy campaigners:

What if you knew which of your constituents had “clout” in
terms of their capacity to spread ideas and help your organization break through the noise and spread the word on your behalf?

In a post titled Clout Seth noted: 

•    The web knows something it’s not telling us–at least not yet.

•    It knows how many followers you have on Twitter, how many friends you have on Facebook, how many people read your blog.

•    It also knows how often those people retweet, amplify and spread your ideas.

Seth goes on to ponder, “So, what if, Google-style, someone took all this data and figured out who has clout. Which of your readers is the one capable of making an idea break through the noise and spread? Bloggers don’t have impact because they have a lot of readers, they have a lot of impact because of who their readers are (my readers, of course, are the most sophisticated and cloutful on the entire web).

“If you knew which of your followers had clout, you could invest more time and energy in personal attention. If we knew where big ideas were starting, that would be neat, and even more useful would be understanding who the key people were in bringing those new ideas to the rest of the world.”

I’m happy to report that at DonorTrends we’ve taken an important first step in helping you find the most “cloutful” among your donors, activists and volunteers. It’s our new identification and screening service called SociaLeaders ™ and it gives you an inexpensive way of spotting those folks who are the  heaviest users of social networks like FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

I say, “an important first step” because as Seth noted in an exchange of emails, quantity of friends is not the only, or even most important, factor that yields clout.

Of course, Seth’s right, and what SociaLeaders ™ does provide is an important starting point for zeroing in on likely "missionaries,"  "recruiters" and potential "super donors" who warrant  further communication and investment in cultivation.

As we’ve reported before, our DonorTrends surveys of donors and what we call "donor superstars" — the category where we find missionaries and recruiters — show a disproportionately high use of social networks.

To encourage Agitator readers to begin finding out who your social network leaders are, DonorTrends is offering a FREE 500 name test.  Just click here to get the ball rolling.

Roger