To Klout or not?
“There’s a new number in town and it’s starting to take effect at hotels, bars, restaurants, and travel companies near you. It can make or break a job interview and can mean the difference between sitting in economy class or business class when flying. It also leads to shopping discounts and other perks. Yes, it’s Klout and everyone is talking about it.”
Mark O’Neil Freelance write, blogger & editor. Managing Editor MakeUseOf.com
Well I’ve been on Klout (www.klout.com) a while and it has little rhyme or reason, my score floats around the 56-57 mark but has jumped to 59 and dropped as quickly for no apparent reason. Most of my score is from Twitter activity it would seem, it’s value is questionable and I wonder what score you’d need to get an airline upgrade!
Klout has a competitor using the name Kred (www.kred.com )which rather than give you just one number gives you 2 I score 743 out of 1000 for influence and 8 out of 12 for out reach not that I pay any attention to it at all. I get an email every now and then telling me I’m in the top 5% of users for such and such which kind of tells me that the top users are inactive aswell!
Who knows if its all meaningless or not, but as with all that is ‘Social Media’ at the moment, businesses large and small are paying attention, they are looking for the footfall so to speak. There’s a lot of doubt cast about concerning the big social channels, FB’s 1 billion users, how many of those accounts are fakes or inactive? Twitter, the same. But as a small business I receive enquiries from Twitter followers and as I say to my clients, if I’m getting enquiries then you could to, but you’ve got to do something, it takes time, it means making a noise about something or joining the conversation as the saying goes.
There’s a couple of good articles about Klout below, that may or may not inspire you to sign up to keep tabs on your social media activity, but as for the score meaning something….. if I was on the jury, I’d be out.
2013
http://nowsourcing.com/2013/03/03/is-klout-a-verifiable-social-media-indicator-or-just-a-meaningless-number/
2012
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/03/ideas-bank/aleks-krotoski
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/04/30/hate-klout-tom-scott-mixes-meaningless-metrics-with-feminine-hygiene-in-response/