AFAIK, this concept was first implemented by Google and known as Author Rank...

> **Author Rank** is a new aspect of Google's search algorithm that will score online content creators. Similar to SEO rankings for sites and pages, authors will now have an associated ranking based on a few contributing factors, including, but not limited to: Social sharing of your Google+ posts.

**Details**: https://blog.retargeter.com/strategy-2/google-author-rank-what-you-need-to-know

There is also a research by Microsoft, that may come handy - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/counts/pubs/TopicalAuthoritiesWSDM11.pdf