This Feature Friday article is written by Tammi Kibler.
The recent addition of LinkedIn to the mix of social media considered when calculating a Klout score has left many wondering about Klout, how to raise your score, and whether it matters after all.
Have you heard of Klout? Do you know your score? As more and more marketing professionals look for ways to measure and manipulate influence online, Klout is emerging as a force too big to be ignored.
What is Klout?
Klout’s algorithm strives to measure a user’s online influence.
Very soon after Twitter’s introduction, it became obvious that you should not judge a Twitter user by the number of followers she has. Klout aims to fill that judgment gap by assessing not only the number of followers a user has, but also the level of interaction, the quality of the followers, and the quality of the followers’ interactions.
Klout added Facebook to its algorithm in October 2010 and recently added Linkedin too.
Why should you care about Klout?
Klout is becoming that thing by which you will be judged in social media.
On HootSuite, your Klout score appears on your Twitter profile whether you have logged into Klout or not. Some Twitter users don’t follow anyone with less than a 40; I imagine some users have a higher cut-off value. Klout Perks and other marketing services are reaching out to introduce new products via so-called “influencers.” When choosing with whom to align themselves, more and more companies are considering your Klout score.
You could be the CEO of a large company, but some who see you have a Klout score of 19 will think less of your potential influence. Even people who think they do not care about these scores can fall under their sway when faced with these numbers on profiles.
Potential Influence
Personally, I prefer to think of Klout as potential social media influence.
Obviously, if you have no followers on Twitter, you are not influencing anyone there (though you may be a large influence outside social media). The user with 2000 followers has a better chance of saying something that triggers a response. If you have low quality followers, who always broadcast and never retweet, then your potential to influence others is lower than that of the guy who has 2000 active users who @reply and retweet his broadcasts.
However, like any algorithm, once people start gaming the system, you may find it hard to lend much credence to the findings. For now, with so many already judging you by your Klout, raising your score should be foremost on your mind.
How to raise your Klout score
These tips will help you increase your klout score and your online influence:
1. Connect all your social media accounts.
Klout lets you add your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to the Twitter statistics they already collect; make sure that you do.
If you don’t show Klout your presence in these arenas, then as far as Klout can see, you have no influence there.
2. Talk/Tweet/Post updates.
You have to be active to prove you can influence others. If you don’t talk, nobody is listening. Strive to post something to each stream, each day.
3. Reply to people on Twitter using replies.
Show Klout you know how to have back-and-forth conversations with a variety of people. Klout evaluates how many @tweets you send as well as how many different users you message directly.
4. Retweet/Share/Like.
Do unto others as you wish done unto you, eh? Help other people spread their messages and they will help spread yours. Again, Klout measures when your messages are being retweeted and by how many different users.
Encourage this behavior by retweeting good tweets. You should also share and interact on Facebook and LinkedIn. Spread the love around.
5. Study your analytics.
Content is king and therefore key to spreading your brand (and trust me, if you have a thumbnail and a Twitter handle, you are a brand).
You have to know what information triggers a response in your audience and give them more of that. Tracking simple analytical data can guide you to more effective communication on all your platforms. (That is, if you care about Klout, how to raise your score and all that.)
6. Cross-promote your platforms.
If you have a Facebook page, invite visitors to follow you on Twitter. Make sure folks on LinkedIn know about your Facebook page. This may feel redundant, but the more ways you connect with a follower, the more opportunities you get to engage with that follower.
More engagement equals more influence in Klout’s opinion.
7. Grow your social media followings.
Yes, Klout measures a lot more, but your total followers counts still form the basis of the assessment. The more people listening to you, the more influence you are perceived to wield.
Find ways to spread your message to more people and grow your influence.
Is Klout a game?
If you do all these things and raise your score, some people might suggest you are gaming the system. I don’t agree. I think understanding the rules and then playing by them will help you succeed. Everything on this list not only increases your Klout score, but also builds your brand and grows your contacts. That spells a social media win/win/win to me.
I should also point out that Klout is not the only game in town. Empire Avenue runs a social influence stock market game and My Likes lets you monetize your Twitter stream. The more criticism we see of these metrics, the more we can expect new competitors will arise claiming to better measure and master online influence.
Like Google and other algorithms, Klout is always evolving to better interpret the data it finds. I would love to hear what you think of this system. Do you know of any factors it considers that I overlooked? Do you judge others by their Klout scores?
I hooked up on the Klout as it feels pretty interesting to me but still their is one problem with that app. It seems like very few people are aware from this app just like me I have also never heard of it and this is the reason that now Klout can not give you exact idea of you social presence because it calculates the score after calculating your interactions with the users who are also using Klout. Well, that means I have a reasonable of interactions on social networks but my Klout score will be very low because only few of my connections are using Klout as compare to a person who doesn’t have much interactions but most of his connections are using Klout.
But I hope that as soon as the number of Klout users will grow it will become a reliable source to figure out the active persons on social networks.
Very good point, Stephen.
Klout only measures activity on three networks at this time. It appears to track everyone’s Twitter user activity (because that is public), but I don’t think it can track Facebook and LinkedIn behavior unless an informed user connects this activity to a Twitter persona.
Even when you connect your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, Klout’s evaluation of the next level of reach (that of those you connect with) is limited by whether those connections are also “enrolled” in Klout.
I hadn’t considered that limitation. Thanks for pointing that out!
I had actually never even heard about Klout before today which I kind of feel bad about now seeing how big the site is. I went to the site and connected it to my Facebook and iI’m really loving the concept so far.
Hi Simon. I’m glad you like it.
“I had actually never even heard about Klout before today which I kind of feel bad about now seeing how big the site is. I went to the site and connected it to my Facebook and iI’m really loving the concept so far.”
Me too!
I signed up at Klout last week and just now went and added my LinkedIn account. Klout indicated it will be integrating LinkedIn over the next week or so.
I do see the potential for Klout to become an important measuring tool. What I like about it (so far) is that I don’t have to spend significant time with it — just set it up and (mostly) forget about it, while keeping an eye open for articles on new social media it incorporates.
And FYI: I use Hootsuite to manage Twitter and my other social media accounts. It shows Klout scores for anyone and was how I first found out about Klout.
You bring up a good point that many are seeing this for the first time in HootSuite. When you look at a Twitter profile, you can’t miss its Klout.
Savvy social media professionals know the limitations of this rating, but many other potential customers/followers/sponsors do not. They see the number and they judge.
I’ve been on Klout for a while and have a decent score…I’ve never really understood what the value might be, but this gives me a much better idea. Thanks!
Another good point, John.
Once you integrate your accounts, you don’t have to do anything else for Klout purposes beyond what you already do on your social networks.
I think this video interview sums up what’s wrong with Klout perfectly
http://diyblogger.net/klout-discovers-a-renowned-sheep-expert-in-mr-danny-brown
All true.
My point isn’t that we should trust Klout, just that if we’re being evaluated this way then we’re stuck doing those things that raise our scores.
The video lacks context, but I presume we are to understand that you are not a sheep farmer, rather you and Dino Dogan made a video and asked everyone to tell Klout you are a sheep expert.
The video proves that Klout can be gamed as to your area of expertise, but I think the response you were able to inspire proves that the influence rating may in fact be appropriate. If you can convince a whole bunch of people to go do something like that on your behalf, that’s influence. That’s what Klout hopes to gauge – if this guy says “jump,” how many ask “how high?”
Not defending them, just saying.
I didn’t “convince” anyone to vote for me as a sheep expert. People thought it would be a laugh, and did it themselves. That’s the great thing about humans – we make our own minds up, and aren’t dictated to by a flawed eco-system.
As to the context, my friend’s 5-year old son saw the joke right away. Some things you just can’t fake…
Sorry, Klout is a joke. Danny is dead-on with his post. There are numerous examples of people using robots that simply post random quotes, etc. and still building into a major ‘influential person’ on Klout.
Hi Tammi,
A very interesting article. I’m quite new to the world of Klout. In fact, it wasn’t until after I read this article that I found out what my Klout score actually was. Although my score isn’t high by any stretch of the imagination, I was actually surprised it wasn’t lower. Although with this information the answers to your questions may now be obvious, no I do not judge others by their Klout score. In fact, as in real life, I try not to judge anyone before getting to know them a little bit better. Just by being out in the blogosphere, I think you tend to get a feel for who’s important and who’s not. That tells me more than any number ever could.
-Petra
Yes, I agree, Petra.
Klout only measures a small cross section of anyone’s behavior and influence, and we probably cheat ourselves if we assign too much weight to its rankings.
There is something to be said for being able to make some sort of quantifiable judgments of influence, if you are trying to sort out who is important to you on the Web. Klout has a long way to go, however, to make itself relevant to niches (+K is a baby step in that direction, but as to Danny’s comment about Sheep, it is far from perfect itself).
Who is actually judging and making “cutoffs” based purely on Klout score? Nobody who is receiving good counsel. Be aware, but beware also.
I think the fact that people are seeing Klout scores on HootSuite creates a credibility for the measure. We might all agree on this page that Klout lacks vigilance, but many of the people looking at our profiles on HootSuite will never read this page or one like it.
People who actually care about how social media works and how to improve their performance in that setting are a small subset of the millions who are influenced by it.
That people see Klout scores on Hootsuite (as well as Rapportive and Seesmic) only indicates that Klout made deals with them. Still lacks context. I will continue to watch with interest, but beware relying on one score to divine influence.
I don’t need to get into all of the flaws of Klout and how it gives power to the frauds who can job the system. Watch Danny’s video above to see how that’s possible.
One thing that jumped out at me is assuming the CEO of a large company gives a flying fudgesicle about their Klout score. They don’t, because they don’t have to. If you’re the CEO of a large company you have more than enough influence and can leverage it at your own discretion. If I’m that CEO who am I going to care about caring about my score? Nobody. Does the CEO need Klout perks? Do they need to have tons of followers on Twitter? No. LinkedIn? Nope. Do they need Klout perks? Do I need to answer that? The reason why most don’t is because it’s a massive time suck to run a large company, as a CEO, and your influence is best leveraged driving revenue, focusing on strategy and providing shareholder value. Think of all the mistakes that are going to be made by lazy people everywhere who put so much value in Klout and seek influencers only to find out, after it’s too late, that said person jobbed the system?
The best part about social media and ego-masturbation services like Klout is that if all of it suddenly was wiped off the planet tomorrow, companies would still find a way to make billions of dollars and sell product to the masses. Now that’s the kind of value a CEO cares about.
People have used robots to game Google for over a decade now, but a website ignored search engine optimization at its own peril. Seems to me, those most harmed by robots gaming the Google algorithm usually cry out for correction and improvement not a return to the days before searches had relevance.
As social media rises in importance, people are looking for tools to filter relevance for them. Klout has emerged as the first of these tools. Imperfect, of course. Probably not the last word.
Klout will always be a better measure of your social media experience than your industry leadership, just as rankings in the search engines measure a company’s online presence not the size of its bricks and mortar business.
Rankings in search engines aren’t simply down to a company’s “online presence” – as JC Penney showed recently.
Seriously? I mean really, seriously? Do I judge others by their Klout scores? Yeah, and by the color of their socks too. So some infinitesimal number of people are on Twitter. Among those folks, there is this logarithm that measures influence. Except, what is that influence really worth? And who is that person really influencing? And are the factors that are used to measure this so called influence really the relevant ones? And what about factors they don’t consider.
I LOVE that folks who sit on Twitter all day because they are unemployed have a high Klout score. Or that if I am really busy doing work for clients, my score suffers. So in other words, if I work, my score goes down. If I don’t work, it goes up.
The clincher for me was learning that Danny Brown was a “thought leader” on sheep. WTF??? That right there makes it pretty clear that the tool is just another shiny object. Too bad it’s got so many fooled. For me at least, I don’t really care what your Klout score is. Tweet great content and I’m with you.
I frankly think it’s ridiculous for anyone to concern themselves with improving their Klout score. Focus on what actually matters and (if Klout ever actually gets it right) your Klout score will look after itself.
Dino and Danny’s “Sheep” interview was actually in response to Klout deciding Danny was influencial on the topic of “Sheep”… presumably because he posted and shared this post:
http://dannybrown.me/2011/06/15/when-sheep-tell-the-shepherd-to-flock-off
Does Klout really matters?. I can understand worring about your PageRank, but not something as shallow and I little bit snob like Klout.
When Google start to give importance to Klout’s rankings I’ll check all about his algorithm and how to improve my qualification.
Yeah I to have just now heard about Klout through this article. Hmmm…..sounds pretty interesting. Will need to look into it further. Thanks for bringing something new to my and our attention….;)
I really think the main question at this point is how people are using Klout to evaluate social influence. I would have enjoyed some more specific examples, though I know that was not the main point of the post. It seems like almost everyone in SM recognizes Klout’s flaws, so understanding who uses it for evaluation and how is really the true question.
You have a very good point about whether or not you’re gaming the system by doing everything you can to raise your score. I don’t think it’s gaming the system if you’re doing everything fairly, using each tool the way it was intended to be used, and optimizing your influence via each one. Now, if you’re skewing your own results in ways that I can’t imagine (but that I imagine are there), then yes, that would be gaming the system. Fair use? Nah.
Delena
I haven’t tried Klout before. Growing scoial media followings seem interesting to try. It is because I haven’t reach a thousand followers. Maybe Klout could help me in twitter and mylikes.
I just checked my Klout score this morning and its gone up 6 points from last week. This could be from the integration of LinkedIn, where I’m quite active.
Interesting; this is now the second mention of Klout I’ve seen in the last couple days. The first time I didn’t bother checking it out but it looks like it could potentially be an incredibly useful tool. I think these kind of “meter” or “ranking” analytic tools will become more and more important and prevalent in the near future.
Intriguing how everyone is focusing on the score and not the perks. Granted I’ve never received a single Klout perk and can only live through others who’ve written reviews but if Klout is a lot of bogus (which I tend to agree) then why are companies partnering with the site to give away complimentary products? Is it only about growing awareness?
I have been touched by Klout Perks twice. Most recently I was chosen as an “influential mom” so it could be your demographic hasn’t yet matched a sponsor’s request.
I think that at this point, most of the conversation generates more buzz for Klout Perks than for the actual sponsors. For example, Mack Collier wrote about his latest experience with Klout Perks last week when he received a perk designed to create buzz for a tv show. I can tell you how he thought this Klout Perk experience compared with his last, I can even remember a timing fail, but I can’t tell you off the top of my head what show was the sponsor. Probably I will recognize it if I see it, but still I feel the novelty of Klout Perks in general overshadows the individual sponsors.
I have read about this a couple of times and was a little dubious, it does sound like someone else trying to launch something to make money off the back of twitter but having read this it looks like there is some scope in actually working towards trying to increase your score.
Hi Tammi,
Quite honestly, this is the first time I’ve heard about Klout.lol What a shame. I think I need to try it now and see how it works. Thanks for this wonderful post!
Im quite new to LinkedIn myself, but ive heard Klout mentioned a number of times by my contacts, without knowing alot about atall. Thanks for your help i’ll have to put into practice what you’ve mentioned here
Hi Tammi…I actually haven’t heard of this klout…But anyway, it doesn’t matter because now I am already updated of this and thanks to your help….
Theres a new one called Tunk Rank that measures twitter influence. Seems like it could be better than Klout.
Thanks for the tip. I am looking into this now.
Hi, Tammi.
I first heard about Klout from ILeane of Basic Blog Tips and was quite interested about it. Then, I was able to check out Dino’s video. It seems like there are conflicting ideas about it. So, I checked it out for myself today right after reading your post.
Klout has its advantages. But, it should not be something that we should pin our entire hopes on, especially when it comes to social media influence. Yes, the numbers we may get here may be encouraging but we must not entirely bank on it. Personally, I’d rather track my social media influence by the responses I get to my comments or to my @replies or tweets on Twitter than just any number and the real interaction and relationship I have with the people I am following and who are following me.
But, I can see how Klout can reel people in.
Thanks for this, Tammi. Appreciate it.
Regards!
Kim
Hey Tammi,
I’ve never heard of Klout so thanks for sharing. I’m wondering how effective or how responsive Klout is going to be and whether its going to be better than what other techniques social media has offered so far. I’m a bit skeptical about the scoring of Klout but maybe I should check it out.
Hello Timmi! This is the first time I heard about Klout. Maybe I should try this so I can give my comments if what are the benefits of doing this for my social media.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Or else get a life… seriously. Don’t you have better things to do than worry about some dumb alogrithm?
I like your article, Jeremy. I too hate sites that make you sign into your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts. It’s interesting that these sites rarely if ever offer privacy policies spelling out how they will use your data, though they invariably obtain far more information than they would get if you subscribed to their email list.
Completely agree with you Tammi!