My Brief Influential Summer: My Thoughts on Klout’s Value
Klout is the online tool that assesses your activity on social media platforms to determine your influence. It was introduced to me by my Twitter friend, Steven Quezada, when he hooked me up with Klout credit for marketing.
Initial Thought: While I couldn’t determine the point, I thought it was pretty cool.
This summer, while I was on vacation, I tweeted often. I checked in on Foursquare. I posted status updates on LinkedIn. Facebook was added to the list of platforms that Klout measures. I reached a Klout score of 51. I was unstoppable.
Next Thought: I still didn’t see the point.
Chris Brogan wrote a blog post that opened “Please stop worrying about your Klout score ….” This written by the man with a 79 Klout score. The post is about Chris’ perspective of influence and marketing. For marketing mortals with <79 Klout score – the post is worth reading for validation.
Around the same time, Tom Webster wrote a blog post on Brand Savant entitled Should Klout Scores be Stickier? that explained a perceived value to Klout. People that don’t know anything about social media may use it to determine a marketer’s value. Over 30 = good score.
Tom (Klout score:62) lamented that when he went on vacation, his score dropped. Unlike my vacation style that ramped up on the social media interaction, Tom’s throttled down and he lost points.
I realized my 51 may be more precious than I thought.
I returned from vacation and got busy. The great-fun-working-with-amazing-clients-who-get-it kind of busy.
Current Thought: A month later, my 51 is a 47. I’m at a loss of what more I can do for the care and feeding of my Klout score. Better than that, I no longer care. I partner with people to market and communicate their business’ value. When I tweeted that my Klout score dropped, the very talented Mike Ciolino of Verve Creative responded:
Find your own Klout score with our “how” post. Let me know what you think …
UPDATE On 9.9.11: Alison Kenney tweeted a great blog post about Klout from Norman Birnbach. He includes Paul Gillin’s call for measurement with these marketing platforms, but Norman brings up some concerns that Klout isn’t ready to be the standard. Steve Cole seems to agree – his topics of influence on Klout: sheep and Mickey Mouse!
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I have a hard time believing that “People that don’t know anything about social media may use [Klout] to determine a marketer’s value.” A) the people who don’t know anything about social media most likely won’t know what Klout is B) I think they’ll look first at the number of followers someone has or how often their name comes up in a simple search. I get that Klout is trying to be the Technorati of all things social, but it’s just not there yet.
Alison – this is a great point of view I hadn’t considered! Thank you for adding it – and I agree that whatever Klout is trying to do, they aren’t achieving it yet. Will they turn off people in the meantime to accepting it?
This is a fantastic post. I agree with Alisons comment above about the “normal man” with no social media expertise knowing about it.
However I use Klout and seem to be slightly addicted to it, I feel I am not alone and this will be the main draw to the site.
I think Klout has a value for people who are finding their feet with being “influential” I find their scoring system patchy at best but it does give an indication.
Steve – I like your site: movingsocial.wordpress.com/ Just subscribed.
Is Klout an addiction … or like poking a toothache with your tongue?
haha bit of both, thanks for the subs
Great little evolution of a Klout obsession, Trish. I think of it as zillow for the social world. Is the number truly “accurate”? Nah. It’s just stuff for relative comparison — and you’re own obsessive fun, of course.
The folks behind Klout make it work by changing the index often enough for repeat visitors. Like, you know, me. Okay, once in a while…
Norm – it is so true! Since posting this … my Klout score is up 2 points in 4 days. Obviously – still peeking …
Now trying to determine what the list functionality on Klout does/serves – after @KipDurney added me to a list called “Coolios.” Sucked back in.
I felt like I was missing out by not knowing my Klout score, but after reading this maybe I can wait a while before investigating. I do tend to “poke a toothache with my tongue” (that’s great Trish!) and right now I need to be paying attention to other priorities.
Thx for writing this.
Trish – Thanks for including my comments in your post! Like it or not I think we’re going to live in a Facebook world for a while. I work with lots of small businesses and few to none have Google+ Klout or Foursquare on their radar. They are just too busy doing what they do to know or care. I think these services have value but it’s applied value – tools for us industry folks to use in creative ways and not really for general consumption.
We are the nerds. The rest of the world is living in a Facebook iPhone world with an occasional (and scary for them) experience with LinkedIn or Twitter. What else do people ‘really’ need?
Mike
mikec@getverve.com