The Exposure Meter Is Broken!

John John Florence’s mojo remains potent. The venerable Transworld Business Exposure Meter just dropped its 2016 first quarter numbers, and once again Two Johns finds himself atop the rankings. 

Tallying a point total of 12,200, Florence finished more than 4,000 points ahead of Mick Fanning, who ended the quarter with a score of 7,800. [Point totals based on scores relating to ad and edit exposure]. Dane Reynolds squeaked into the top three with 5,700 points. 

The biggest surprise was avant guard craftsman Ryan Burch, who went from a lowly 94th to tie Reynolds for third. Mitch Coleborn also made a dramatic climb as he went from 41st to 6th, largely because of the ad play he’s been getting with Volcom.

When print was king the Exposure Meter served as the gold standard for ranking the visibility and viability of the most marketable pros. The results from this incarnation of the Exposure Meter were tabulated using recent print issues of Surfer and Surfing Magazine (who’s parent company incidentally owns Transworld Business and shuttered Transworld Surf some years ago).

These days the value is in social media reach. A favorite tool of agents and marketing managers alike, Hookit.com’s algorithms quantify a host of digital information, including social media analytics from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The site compiles it into one real-time score, as well as other graphs and metrics to help illustrate trends. TW Biz uses the service for their Social Rankings, but apparently not for their overall Exposure Meter. 

Really though, Kelly’s exposure/popularity is immeasurable. WSL/Kirstin Scholtz

Example, John John, he’s got a total social audience of 1.2 million. In the last 30 days his audience has grown 44k and he’s had 83k social interaction. That gives him a total score of 5,259.

Meanwhile, Kelly Slater has a social audience of 3.8 million. His audience has grown 51k and he’s had 295k social interactions in the last 30 days. That gives him a total score of 7,497. Not too shabby. 

But Gabby Medina crushes everyone. He’s even bigger than Alana Blanchard. He’s holding down an audience of 5.7 million. Last month his audience grew by 109k and he had a remarkable 1.3 million interactions. This gives him a high score of 7,979.

Dane Reynolds, his audience sits at 202k and has only grown by 3k in the last 30 days. He gets 92% of his play on Insta. He finished the month with a total score of 5,473, which beats John John.

Oh, and Ryan Burch, his score’s only 251. Burch got a profile in Surfer last month and that’s what shot him up the rankings, but his digital footprint is hardly even there.

Burch isn’t winning any social exposure meters (nor does it matter, nor does he care).