Startups like Bulkfans.com and the brands currently working with them might argue the contrary. Why else would companies that offer deals like “Get 1000 Likes for $79” be thriving right now?

Thousands of nameless fans

Quantity is important. Our industry uses stats like the number of comments, Likes, and retweets to help determine the ROI of social campaigns. And in many cases, knowing the number of users that commented or voted can also help determine a campaign’s influence on things like purchase intent, in the absence of metrics that connect social directly to sales.

But focusing solely on quantity leaves a huge component out of the mix: Quality. Sure, a brand can buy a few thousand Likes for its Facebook Page, but are those new Likes going to be true brand ambassadors? Will they influence their friends? Will they ultimately make a purchase? Are those Likes authentic?

Reducing influence to a cheap commodity

I’m not saying that companies selling fans in bulk don’t have a right to exist. Clearly, some brands think they’re useful. But I do think we’re creating a big problem for ourselves – digital media companies, brands and everything in between – if these services become commonplace. We’re commoditizing Likes and influence, before anyone really has the time to determine how valuable they are.

We keep making this mistake as an industry. We did it with clicks and impressions, and we’re doing it with Likes and fans now. Trying to establish the value of something by showing how cheaply someone can get or give it isn’t a good long-term strategy.

Instead of buying fans for the lowest price possible, brands need to earn them. That’s where companies like Halogen, Buddy Media and others come in. We help brands earn fans that ultimately have more value. How do we know they’re more valuable? At Halogen, we use three criteria:

1 – Are they purchasing? Economic value, plain and simple. Are they first-time buyers? Repeat buyers?

2 – What’s the level of engagement? Do these fans contribute to the community and enhance the brand’s social presence? Have they subscribed to a mailing list as a result? Are they posting recipes they made with a specific product, or pictures of themselves wearing the item?

3 – Are they real brand advocates? It’s easy to “Like” a brand on Facebook. Being an advocate – sharing the positive experience of a brand with someone else – is harder. Are your Likes or fans pulling others into the conversation? Are they showing their loyalty in other ways?

Of course, measuring influence and fan value is an ongoing process. We haven’t completely figured it out for our clients yet, but we’re constantly trying. What about you? How is your brand measuring fans?

Photo Credit: National Library NZ on The Commons

Tom Hoehn, Kodak’s director of interactive marketing and convergence media, emphasizes the importance of content in the company’s marketing efforts: “Content is at the core of everything that we do with interactive marketing. We use it in our blogs that have embedded videos, from YouTube, that are linked from tweets, Facebook wall posts, and featured in outbound email messages.”

Content should remain at the core of everything marketers do – the key is understanding how to produce consistent, quality content that eliminates the crash and burn.

Its great to see two of our top publishers named as premier influencers in the SAY Media 100.  We support all efforts to focus attention on the authentic web and to recognize the growing influence of these passionate and personal voices.

Congratulations, Jamie and Amanda!

First, read about Executive Chairman Peter Horan, VP of Strategy Brian Eakin and Creative Director Ed Ortega in Paid Content here.  Be sure to check out AdWeek’s coverage of the news here.

We’re excited to have these talented industry leaders join the Halogen team and look forward to big things from them and from Halogen as a whole.

Tune in to for a closer look at Sennott’s thoughts on the revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood and more, and be sure to read some of Halogen’s exclusive publisher GlobalPost’s extensive coverage of the revolution here.

Platform complexity?

Too many new formats?

Too much data, and not enough research?

If you’re in LA tomorrow, join our CEO Greg Shove at the DIGIDAY:ON MEDIA event. He’ll tackle the issue on a panel with execs like adap.tv’s Toby Gabriner and James Piper from Vibrant Media. Trust Greg to be candid during the discussion, and outline some steps that online publishers need to take if they really want to earn big brand dollars. He’ll also share insights that are specific to prestige brands.

Session starts @ 2:20pm. Get the full details on the panel, venue and conference below:

2:20pm: The Brand Perspective on Digital Advertising: Key brands are ready to spend more of their budgets on digital, but not as much as publishers would like to see. What’s holding them back? How does digital marketing accelerate the migration of big brands from apprehension about digital to dominance.

Moderator: Toby Gabriner, President, Adap.tv

Speakers: Jacob Cohen, Senior Digital Strategist, Wolff Olins

Greg Shove, CEO, Halogen Media

James Piper, SVP of Sales & GM, West Coast, Vibrant Media

Aaron Broder, Co-Founder & CEO, Evolve Media Corp.

The venue: Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (in Century City)

Photo Credit: purpleslog via Flickr

But authenticity isn’t just part of some PR pitch. We practice what we preach. So each month, we’ll introduce you to a new team member so that you get to know us – and understand why we’re authentic from the inside. This month, it’s our marketing analyst Olivia Jovais.

Olivia Jovais, marketing analyst at Halogen

What does “authentic” mean to you?

Authentic is a quality I look for in friends, coworkers, products and experiences because it implies reliability, truthfulness and plain and simple “real-ness.”  Now it’s something I look for on the web.

What brand do you think is great at conveying a message of authenticity online?

Not simply because we share a name, but Alice + Olivia has a unique way of conveying authenticity online.  I don’t know if it’s the font and design used on their site, their playful ability to connect with fans or their amazing “4AM Finds” collages that encourage organic sharing of content, but everything from dress to tweet to 4AM find conveys an authentic and quirky personality.

What’s your must-read blog and why?

Atlantic-Pacific for fashion. Jezebel for fun. Why? Because fashion needs no words and because Jezebel covers stories I can share with everyone from friends to professors.

What’s an average day like for you at Halogen?

A good day at Halogen never starts without a group trip to Philz Coffee across the street.  After that, an average day at Halogen consists of helping develop and bring to fruition current campaigns, such as The Music Never Stopped, create presentations for our sales team and CEO and manage Halogen’s blog and social media efforts.

For reading: Kindle, iPad or tree books?

Kindle.

For mobile: iPhone, Android or Windows?

iPhone.

What’s the best thing you’ve tasted in the past month?

The best thing I’ve tasted in the past month would have to be the filet minion appetizer at The Slanted Door, shared with the Halogen team at a recent lunch.

Would you pay to use Facebook or Twitter? If so, how much?

Yes, I would pay for Facebook and Twitter, as much as an online newspaper might charge.  $9.99 per month?  And yes, I did just compare Facebook and Twitter to online news sources, sue me.

Can you share a recent example of a brand using social media effectively?

Cover Girl’s newest commercials direct viewers to the brand’s Facebook page rather than the website, proving that social media sites can be even more effective in promoting the brand than the company’s own website.  Fans who “like” the brand enter to win a contest to be on Ellen and the brand donated $1 to the Make-a-Wish Foundation for the first 50,000 fans who entered.

Did you watch the Superbowl? What was your favorite ad?

Against my will, I did watch the Superbowl.  My favorite ad was Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” because I didn’t care about Chrysler before and now I sort of do.

When we decide on what publishers we want as part of our media network, we look at a variety of factors, from look and feel of the site, quality and consistency of content, engagement of the readers (comments, shares etc), and now we look at their Klout scores. We also look at these factors over a period of time – so consistency and growth matter. Like any algorithm ( eg the imperfections of search algorithms and all gaming that did and still does go on), these new services will need to improve over time – especially in terms of their inputs for gauging social influence, such as activity on LinkedIn or Tumblr, comment volume as tracked by Disqus etc. Lots of data API’s out there for these services to source from.

So Klout and its competitors will get better – and they will no doubt find a way to build a business off this data platform (probably charging us at some point!). Meanwhile we will work with their data to help identify the best authentic and social publishers on the web – and then deploy campaigns that can leverage the influence of those publishers. Joe (Klout’s CEO) and I are planning an event in late March in NYC – more on that soon.

But we think the buzz isn’t just about the price tag, or Arianna’s new role as Aol’s editor in chief. Dig deeper and you’ll see that it’s about Aol placing a big bet on authentic media – engaged, distributed and influential – at scale.

Engaged

HuffPo built its brand by finding writers that were so passionate about their content, they were willing to write without pay. For years. That’s engagement. From politics, to the environment, to sports, technology and entertainment, that engaged content attracted eyeballs and comments.

Distributed

HuffPo is available online, by iPhone, iPad and Android app. It’s even available via a Google Chrome extension, which … is way ahead of the tech curve. This is authenticity: Delivering readers their news, opinion, and gossip wherever they are.

Influence that can be measured

How did HuffPo double revenues from ‘09-’10? By infusing its content with social media elements that could be measured. HuffPo made it easy to comment on and share posts, rewarded its most prolific participants with profile badges, and even created social media-specific ad units. The upgrades helped HuffPo prove that its content was influential to advertisers (and that the influence was worth paying for).

But is it really a good deal?
Op-eds from from industry insiders like Adweek’s Michael Wolff and GigaOm’s Om Malik question the validity of the partnership.

There are rumblings that Huffpo actually had a hard time justifying high CPMs for its content, despite being able to prove that it was engaging, and there’s the question of whether HuffPo will be able to retain its cultural cachet as part of Aol’s content empire.

Either way, this is a big deal not only for HuffPo, but for the evolution of the authentic web overall.

As Folio notes, the comments didn’t sit well with the event attendees, who were mostly a mix of “print-based media company executives and their financial sponsors.”

Wired’s techie audience may have been ready for straight talk about radical changes in content consumption and monetization, but not stodgy old media execs, right? Well, at Halogen, we’re inclined to agree with both Chris Anderson and George Colony – but with some of our own qualifications.

We think the old-school model of publishers thriving just because they have brand recognition and a high volume of traffic – let’s call them blue-chip sites – is dead. We think publishers that infuse their content with passion, that excel at curating engaged audiences – and most importantly – can package that engagement up for advertisers across devices, will be the ones that thrive.

We call it the authentic web, or authentic media. And we think it’s the way that readers, publishers, and advertisers will be thinking about digital media for the months and years to come.

So wait. Is this “authentic web” just a new buzzword?

Good question. The authentic web describes content that is engaging, distributed and influential. That might sound “buzz-worthy,” but we think it’s just the natural evolution of the internet, considering how much focus there is on social media and engagement.

Authentic media is valuable to readers, because the creators are passionate about the content. They’re writing and curating stories, photos and videos because they’ve chosen to – not because an editor assigned it to them or a business model dictated it.

Authentic media is also valuable to advertisers, because these sites cultivate participants, not just passive readers. Instead of broadcasting messages to people who may or may not be listening, brands can tap into the authentic web with everything from standard banner ads, to sponsored content, to contests and YouTube videos – and the sites’ engaged readers then spread the messages to their own networks.

Authentic means engaged

Engaged audiences are not just passive eyeballs. They’re reading, commenting, liking posts on Facebook and sharing with their friends. That’s because the passion from the writers palpable. It’s inspiring. The authentic web gets readers engaged.

Take a site like Globalpost.com – part of the Halogen family – which is an independent global news source. Globalpost covers issues ranging from politics, to finance, to culture and has amassed over 120,000 Facebook fans in the process. Compare that to Reuters (arguably, one of the world’s most well-known, respected and voluminous news sources) which has just under 25,000 Facebook fans.

If you keep searching, you’ll find examples like this all across the web. From sites like Fashionista.com that go head-to-head with brand behemoth’s like Vogue, to investment/analysis sites like Zerohedge that compete with The Economist (for eyeballs and ad dollars).

Authentic means distributed

Authentic media gets to users wherever they are, in the format that they choose. Whether it’s via mobile website, iPhone or Android app, a special tablet edition, or live-streamed events videos, it’s not tethered to any one site or medium. It’s content that is shared and delivered across multiple platforms.

Authentic means influence (and influence can be measured)

Let’s go back to the Globalpost example. It’s not enough to say that the site is more influential than Reuters. That influence needs to be quantified, and the new social currency of comments, “Likes” and retweets is helping to do it.

There are tools emerging that will help authentic publishers use these metrics to demonstrate how influential they are. Advertisers will then be able to use those same metrics to put a more accurate price tag on the engagement and influence that different publishers can deliver.

Stay tuned for announcements from us that dive a little deeper into the connection between authentic media, influence measurement and advertising. In the meantime, what do you think of our definition of authentic media? Do you think it’s the future of the web?