Klout is a company based out of San Francisco, Ca that analyzes, and measures online influence. According to Klout, “influence is the ability to drive people to action.”
The standard for influence.
Using 35 different variables, Klout analyzes data from a user’s Twitter and (if connected) Facebook, and LinkedIn (just announced) profiles to determine a users score. Scores range from 1 (lowest) to 100 (highest). In addition to the overall score, Klout also determines True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.
“The final Klout Score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging their audience and how big of an impact their messages have on people.” (Read more on their blog.)
[This is part of the Becoming A Social Media Rockstar series. Read the rest of the posts in this series by clicking here.]
It basically comes down to ENGAGEMENT. How well you interact, engage and connect with your audience is the key factor in calculating your Klout score. This is a good point of reference for anyone looking to be effective in the online social sphere.
For me, the end goal is not to get a high score, but to increase my influence, and the impact of the message I am communicating. The number is just one means of gauging how well I am doing. It measures real data, and gives insight on what is working vs. what is not.
Beyond the obvious benefits of being able to analyze your influence, Klout has also partnered with some MAJOR companies to create Klout Perks (worth looking into). Essentially it is a rewards program for those who are Social Media Rockstars.
They have also just rolled out a new program called “+K”, where you have an allotted amount of “+K’s” to give (5 per day) to those people who have influenced you in a certain topic. Go try it out! (You can start by giving me a +K on ‘social media’… that would be awfully nice of you!)
If you’d like to know some Tips and Tricks to boosting your Klout score, check out this post I wrote for ChurchMag.
How do you measure your success in the realm of social media? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Have you been able to determine how the +k affects the Klout score?
It doesn’t effect the Klout score (not yet anyways), it is more focused on showing what people are influential about. Sort of like giving CONTEXT to their influence score.
It is interesting how Klout sees me as influential in social media and I see myself as an L&D and Training guy in the main
Whatever works I guess
Yea, they’re definitely far from perfect, but heading in the right direction.
It’s all about the keywords they capture and like Dustin said they are far from perfect…lol. They have me as influential in “Granada” because I have posted about the Food Trucks in Granada Hills and likewise in Food because they capture the first keyword “Food”. They need a way for you to submit requests for adjustments to listed Topics. That might make it a bit more legit but then they actually have to hire someone to do the work. I like the way they are going. The perks have been pretty cool. I talk about them below.
Was just in wandering about Klout again and giving some +K and checking the perks. I was wondering if anyone has gotten any really good perks from it? I know I have gotten $15 in Subway, some free Axe hair gel that I may be close to using if I don’t get my hair cut soon and I just scored a free screen cleaning cloth. Okay, so aside from the $15 most of the stuff they offer is pretty cheesie so I was wondering if anyone else has scored anything really cool?
I did finally use the $10 in free credit to the Clymb.com site. It’s actually a pretty cool site but you have to watch for their deals pretty much daily to find something that you really need but when something comes up, to get a deal that comes up at like 70% off it’s worth it.