Klout is fairly new site that measures an individual’s social media influence. Using their algorithm they grade your social media influence based on 35 factors gathered from your twitter and Facebook accounts, even including the number of Likes, RTs and other metrics on your profile page. It’s been getting lots of buzz lately but it’s been mixed reviews. There have been lists of mom bloggers with high Klout scores via Jennifer James, and Klout itself. There has also been concern about how the measurement will be used. From the accuracy of Klout scores via Morgan Brown who wrote about his Klout score being a farce, to Charity Hisle of 2witterbug who wrote “Kiss My Klout” pointing out the flaws in how a score can be perceived.
What’s a Klout Score?
Klout scores are on a scale of 1-100 with 100 being the highest score. You can also find metrics such as “true reach”, amplification, and network. Take a look at our meager score on our twitter account (@justcentsible).
@JustCentsible Klout score
Klout Updates:
Klout recently announced that it will be updating scores daily (and without you having to manually update your score), and they have enhanced their algorithm which made many scores jump 10-20 points.
How do we use Klout?
As bloggers we love having another data point to share with brands which we’ll include in our ad kits. Unfortunately there will always be the concern that marketing and PR firms will rely too heavily on Klout as their only data point.While our scores are great right now (Julie is 66 and Kelly is 70 as of this posting) we know many very influential people in social media who have abysmal scores on Klout.
From the PR side we love having another metric to learn more about bloggers we are working with or researching for campaigns we are creating. We are careful to do all our homework though and use a variety of methods to gauge reach, traffic, and influence. We look at Klout as just another tool in our toolbox.
Is Klout accurate?
Peter Shankman has some great points on how Klout works, and why Klout will help brands target the right influencers. It’s definitely a valid way to see what someone is talking about is relevant to your brand, but we’ve heard from many people that the list of topics are often off base. (as in they have never tweeted about said topic) It’s also easy to get the same information from actually reading a person’s twitter stream, Facebook page or even their blog all of which can be accomplished quickly for a cursory understanding of what topics they discuss. That kind of social media research should not be replaced by Klout.
We also call question on some of the other measurements as Julie’s Klout says she influences Jimmy Rollins (who has a Klout score of 18), and Kelly’s Klout hasn’t updated the metrics on RTs and other measurements in over a week.
Why should you care about Klout?
Overall we would definitely recommend that Klout is a site you should keep an eye on-if only to see what happens next. At the very least, we’re curious to see what else Klout has up their sleeves. We’ve already seen that influencers were given free airfare, free movie tickets (Recently we were both invited to a screening of Disney’s Tangled and each received a gift package including some goodies for our kids), and the Palms recently announced a “Klout Klub.”
If you are a blogger pay attention to your Klout score, but don’t freak out if your score isn’t great. (the same advice goes for looking at your traffic numbers) If you’re in PR or marketing it makes sense to pay attention as well, but know that Klout is still new and it shouldn’t be your only data for making decisions.
What do you think of Klout? Do you feel like it’s just another way to market to social media folks (who in turn influence their audiences) or do you feel like it’s an interesting new measurement of influence?
Kelly & Julie
