Is there anything perfect in this world? Not so much. We know nothing is perfect within social media either, however good enough sometimes has a role in how we do things in life and business. In my humble opinion, Klout is a good example of this.
Since social media took off, the measure of how well one was doing was often judged by number of fans, followers and friends, outside of limited click tracking and assumed ROI metrics. These are all good, but there was nothing that really measured how social a person or brand really was. How well they were engaging with their audience or leading on various topics.
Though I have no dog in this hunt (I am not an investor in Klout nor am I being paid for my views), I do believe that their technology fills an important gap within the social graph. Perfect, no. Evolving relevance to everyone, I think yes.
Here are three reasons what Klout and your Klout score should matter to you and others you connect with:
1) The most accepted and integrated measurement tool available. It’s integrated into HootSuite and various other tools already and will only continue to be adopted as the default measurement.
2) It combines someone’s Twitter, Facebook and soon Linkedin Presence to establish their score. This alone is an exceptional advantage. Crossing both of the major platforms and combining the data separates the tinkerers from the real social media players.
3) It gives people an “IDEA” of how active and relevant you are, and the social content topics you most cover. I check most of my new followers Klout score in HootSuite. I check everyone’s bio that engages with me, including their Klout score. It gives me a very good idea of who they are and how they use their social media account. It does influence how I engage with them as well.
My recommendations:
DO: Keep an eye on your score. More importantly the details surrounding your score to get an idea of where you are doing well and how you can improve. Engage, share and build relationships. This will not only improve your score, but most importantly, your social media effectiveness.
DON’T: Manage your social media marketing efforts based on your Klout score. Like anything, you can find behaviors that may improve your score, but will not improve your social media effectiveness. So don’t do it!
Again, nothing is perfect, we all know this. But be aware that Klout will not be going away and you need to understand the technology and take steps to utlize it in your daily activities if you truly want to make social media marketing effective.
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Hey Robert,
Great post, thanks for sharing!
-Megan
@meganberry
Marketing Manager, Klout
You bet Megan. There was no attempt to be a promo guy for Klout, but I like what you guys are doing and wanted to provide some clarity for the many that are caught up in the negative or misunderstand what you guys do. From the response, I think we achieved that.
Thank you for the shout out.
Robert
I don’t particularly enjoy posts that flat out say that Klout is dumb. You’ve done a great job (as usual) of pointing out key points why you should care, but not obsess over it.
Thanks for the great post!
Thank you Aaron. Negativity about a lot of different things isn’t helpful. I find that showing the reality of things coupled with the positive reasons to do something is far more helpful to many more people.
Again, Thanx for the props. :-)
Robert
Robert,
While Klout is good at giving an “idea” of influence, I don’t think you can actually say that the tool conclusively provides a measure of influence and in a world where the big companies are paying major $$ to identify influencers, Klout does a poor job of providing that idea.
Tweets, retweets, and interactions don’t tell you if that person is truly influential. Influence is the ability to cause a change in mindset or behavior–something that I am convinced a short tweet, or interaction on Facebook can produce. Influence, especially in this day and age, is much more connected to relationships. Considering that a relationship takes a lot more work than simply interacting over a social network once or twice, Klout just can’t cut it.
The influencer ideology is flawed–people pay attention because of relationships, not because someone “influential” told them to. See: http://www.bnet.com/blog/best-business-books/a-scientific-view-of-why-ideas-go-viral/331.
I would also consider asking how Klout defines influence and how they say they are measuring it. Does that match up with what you think is influential?
Aaron,
I didn’t say that it provides a conclusive measurement, nor do they purport to. Nothing is perfect as I clearly outlined in the post. To date, it is the best tool for one to measure how well they are interacting and driving the sharing of their content and what social content topics one focuses on.
I agree, there are some major flaws with any algorithm based solution within such a human required metric, however I believe the benefits of the solution Klout has developed and will no doubt continue to fine tune is generally good.
What solution have you created to better provide some level of engagement and influence across the social graph Aaron?
Love and appreciate the input!!!
Robert
Robert, Klout is currently established as the most preeminent instruments of online influence. Given its clout (no pun intended) and authority in the realm of social media measurement, Klout is occasionally misunderstood and/or hotly contested.
Your post provides clear examples that help distinguish the merit of Klout.
In particular, your concise recommendations provide valuable insight that remind your audience to remain true when managing social media marketing.
Thank you!
That was so kind Andrew. That is what I tried to do. Thanx for noticing and commenting as such!
Robert
Klout is going to sync with LinkedIn?!? YAY!! Hope my score goes up because this is where I spend most of my ‘online social time’ just due to the business and where my target hangs out. I notice my score goes up and down depending upon how active I am. Ya I could spend all day on Twitter and have an awesome Klout score but what else would I have? Am I really of value to you or to my own company? Not so sure.
Christina,
The idea here is that proper and consistent activity within the social graph (all platforms you are engage in) is what creates a higher score and more importantly deeper connections and relationships, which done properly does result in value to me and my company and would you and yours. :)
I agree with Christina. I’ll be glad when Klout connects with LinkedIn because that might be my most “mature” presence and profile. PeerIndex also lets you connect to a blog, so I’ll be happy when Klout does that, also.
Of course, Klout was the first index of its kind that we included in Pulse Analytics because I do think it is “first to market” regarding name recognition for rating social media influence.
Hi Robert,
Great blogpost, as usual! Another thing I really enjoy about Klout is that you can see how your friends communicate. Some are more consistent and some post and tweet in spurts. So you can compare your style of influence. In the future, it could become like a Myers-Briggs score, where people of different styles team up with others who have different styles to create a well-rounded team.
Thank you for the post. Very helpful.
Carol
Thank you Carol! Always great points and helpful insight. Not sure Klout itself would every do the group thing, but I could see another app using their scoring to create all kinds of groups that would be beneficial…
Thanx again!
Robert
Hi Robert and thanks for the post.
It’s good to see Klout upping it’s game are encouraging people to engage more, what value being awarded a K has remains to be seen.
Klout and PeerIndex do very similar jobs, however, to me, the ultimate test of an individuals real Social Media connectivity and engagement is Empire Avenue, what do you think of Empire Avenue??
I’d been interested in your opinion.
Thanks again, for the post.
Best regards
Peter
Thanx for the comments Peter. As for your question, I am no fan of Empire Avenue. Their main focus is on Social Gaming and represent no credible relevance to social measurement in my humble opinion. Furthermore, their model requires the management of yet another platform, contacts and connections, whereas the other two platforms you mentioned focus on true measurement, without requiring people to plug in to yet another application that needs constant management.
For me, social media effectiveness isn’t a game and should not be aligned with said. My opinion is free and worth every penny! :-)
Thanx for the comments…
Robert
I totally agree with your post here. It has it’s place but is not the end all be all!
Thanx for the Ping back!
Robert
I think Klout is great, and I know they don’t claim to be perfect. My only concern is when I see my Klout score fluctuating rapidly, inflating or capsizing on a day-to-day basis. All things considered though, I do appreciate the technology.
Thanx for the comments Grant…
If you are referring to recently, the fluctuation in your score (and everyone’s for that matter) occurred during the upgrade to their new platform. Outside of that, the more consistent you post, engage and connect within your social graph, the more consistent your score will be.
Hope this helps!
Robert
Thanks for the information. I know Klout is here to stay. I find it interesting, but how do you connect with people or respond or not to them based on their Klout score? Thanks for your post
Tom,
I use HootSuite and it integrates Klout, so when ever I open a persons profile, I also see their score… Make sense?
Robert