Klout: The Standard for Influence

About Klout

In General• It is more important to

participate in conversations and engage with your audience than to worry if your score drops a few points or your style changes to the other side of the board.

Klout Kompetitors

Empire Avenue•The “Social Stock Market”- can earn virtual currency and expand networks.

Twylah•Organizes Twitter stream into topical folders.

Twitter Grader•Measures the power and authority of Twitter profiles.

MyImpact•Measures and records impact within volunteer, nonprofit and related organizations.

Kompetitors Kontinued

Peer Index•Measures online reputation and authority, in an attempt to "help you discover the authorities and opinion formers on a given topic.”

•Looks at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and up to three personal blogs/websites to determine a person’s influence.

•Too few topics and too few authorities.

•Social Media Today: “While it’s too early to say whether or not this is a tool everyone must use, it’s definitely a must-watch. Test it out next time you have to create an influencer list. I’ll bet you find some people you weren’t already thinking about adding to your campaign.”

Klout’s Advantage

• Twitter: Klout’s influence score is based on a user’s ability to drive action through Tweets, Retweets and more.

• Facebook: Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network’s nearly 700 million users.

• LinkedIn: Recently added this social media site to evaluate Klout scores.

LinkedIn with Klout

• Founder and CEO Joe Fernandez says that LinkedIn integration was one of the most requested features for Klout users. The company says that some users aren’t as active on Twitter, but are active on LinkedIn, and this is a way to make Klout scores more accurate.

• Now that LinkedIn has over 100 million users and is also encouraging more sharing and engagement on the network, it probably makes sense for influence on the professional network to be measured.

Klout Plus

Klout released a new feature June 1st called +K, it is the ability to vouch for your peers’ influence in topics.

• Give +K on topics: If a user has recently influenced you in a topic, give them +K in that topic

• More topics: our topics model is even more accurate, and now surfaces up to 10 topics per user

• Hide topics: You can now opt to hide your topics from public display

With the +K system, you’ll see a +K button next to all users’ topics: this is a 1-click way to let us know that this user has recently influenced you in this topic.

Klout Plus

• “Klout is basically your social credit score. Consumers should care because it affects the way employers, companies and everyone looks at your ability to spread information as a critical part of the attention economy today.”

• “For the first time, it’s not just how much money you have or what you look like. It’s what you say and how you say it.” – Joe Fernandez, Co-founder of Klout

• The average score is in the high teens. A score in the 40s suggests a strong, but niche, following. A 100, on the other hand, means you’re a celeb.

Klout Plus

Success Stories• Las Vegas’ Palms Hotel

– Special treatment according to Klout score

• Audi Campaign– Klout helped Audi find

more than 1,100 people to reach out to about the campaign

• California job interviews– Influencing job interview

process

Success Stories• Las Vegas’ Palms Hotel

– Special treatment according to Klout score

• Audi Campaign– Klout helped Audi find

more than 1,100 people to reach out to about the campaign

• California job interviews– Influencing job interview

process

Klout Doubt

Klout Doubt

Reputation & Opinions•TheFutureBuzz said, “Welcome to Klout: the app where everything’s made up and your score doesn’t matter.”

•Memeburn calls Klout “the latest cyber self-esteem bully.”

• “It’s another version of cool kids vs. ‘you’re not’” –Barbara Johnson, MarketWave Account Director

Klout Doubt – Features

Network Influence• Measures the influence of those individuals who follow the original

user

• Called the online version of “Are you popular?”

• Determines if you are influencing important people. Problem: Klout uses its own Klout score to determine who is influential and important.

Klout Doubt – Features

Klout Style• Confusing because it frequently changes even if your content remains the

same. 16 different classifications with overlapping descriptions.

+ K• Called a copy of Google’s +1, released in March

• “Although Klout is not in the search market it is quite evident that theyintended to use the likeness of Google +1 to their advantage and for acompany like Klout that is banking on influence I have to say they arehonestly failing because influential people tend to push originality and notclone other peoples ideas.” – Blogging Google

Klout Doubt

Difficult to Measure Online Influence• No exact, definitive number to associate with social influence

• According to Business Insider, most of the information comes from Twitter. Facebook is used in a more personal manner and LinkedIn is used in more of a professional manner.

Klout Doubt

Can be “Gamed”• The system is easy to break because numbers can always be

gamed, at end of day Klout is a number.

• Says an influence score or automated grade does not work because it attempts to take something qualitative and make it quantitative.

• Example: Multiple incidents where people are labeled influential on subjects they have never or only once tweeted about.

Klout Doubt

Inconsistent• Does not correctly order individuals

in terms of how influential they are

• Connecting an additional account will always increase your Klout

• Results are not monotonic

• @The_JMoney: Dear @Klout; why do scores skyrocket and nosedive seemingly at random despite no real changes in user behavior?

• @Klout: @the_jmoney it’s not about your behavior but about your audience’s reactions and influence

Klout Konclusions

Professionals• According to Dan Bergeron from Likeable Media, “While Klout is an

innovator in attempting to measure social influence, there is still a lot of gray area that’s hard to define. It is more important to participate in conversations and engage with your audience than to worry if your score drops a few points or your style changes to the other side of the board.”

• According to Basil C. Puglisi from DigitalBrandMarketing.com Klout received $8.5 million in funding in January, a “sign that investors believe in the future” of Klout.

Klout Konclusions

•According to research within MarketWave, 75 percent of employees doubt Klout.

•Personal Recommendations from Catherine and Whitney

#superinterns