Klout has been hitting the social media headlines recently. It’s caused, and is continuing to cause much heated debate. This simple tool is certainly not without controversy. 
One of the stories that really hit home with me was how a boy managed to get a Klout score and profile when he never allowed access to any of his accounts. Shockingly you can even click to see his Facebook account. As a mother and someone who is very prolific on all the social media networks I would be furious about this!
It was reported that he wrote on her wall (which was public). So does that mean Klout accessed his details? Whether this is a one off example, a glitch or not, I don’t know. But it’s clearly not good and if Klout itself wants to have a good score they need to sort this out and quickly.
But what is Klout? Klout is said to measure your social influence based on your ability to drive action.
After signing up, you are given a Klout score. The higher the score the bigger your social influence. So, if you are very active across different social media networks, your influence will be high, leading to a high Klout score. Klout measures your social influence across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube. Your score could range from 1-100. Klout groups your score into 3 metrics: Network Influence, Amplification Probability and True Reach.
Your Klout score isn’t based on how many followers or friends you have.
Rather it considers the number of re-tweets, messages, likes, comments or shares you have. Klout isn’t just interested in how many mentioners, re-tweeters, likers, commenters and recommenders you have, it’s also interested in how influential they are.
Klout is often seen as a way to measure your success in the social media arena. Certainly, Klout is currently the most dominant tool to measure your online reputation. Whether you like it or not, Klout does seem to be influential. Many are anxious to increase their Klout scores and panic when they go down. However, not everyone is a fan. As many are beginning to realize the limitations of Klout, there has been heavy criticism of this tool.
Many don’t see Klout as a valid measure and give little attention to their score and believe that others do not care either. The arguments seem to be divided between pro-Klout high-scorers and anti-Klout low scorers. But who is right? More importantly, should you be using Klout? Let’s weigh up the pros and cons…
Klout is simple. It conveys a lot of information very quickly.
Klout gives an immediate and clear indication of a person’s engagement and influence on the net. One score gives you a quick snapshot of how you and others are doing online. Likewise, it also gives others an idea of how they and you are doing online. Whilst it’s not completely accurate, it does give you an indication. Klout is a useful tool to keep a watch on your online influence and it can help you learn more about your how you use social media. Whilst it’s not completely accurate, it does give you some indications of areas that you need to work on. Trying to improve/ maintain your score can be a good motivator to keep your efforts up.
But it’s not all good. There are limitations of Klout and negative implications that arise from this.
Consider some of the questions.
- Is it really possible that a single score can truly reflect everything about your online influence? Perhaps not. Surely your success on the net is more complex than that.
- Furthermore, the metrics used are arguably flawed. Surely follower counts are a good metric? But Klout doesn’t take them into account.
Moreover, the narrow range of metrics often leads to skewed scores. Often the scores don’t add up to what you would expect. Frequently the results don’t make much sense. This problem is compounded by the fact that your Klout score is improved if you mix with others that have high Klout scores.
For that reason, perhaps it’s time to get back to basics.
Surely, intuition and common sense are better judges of your influence than some narrow score. It seems you cannot afford to remove the human element from your measurements. Whilst Klout is fine for getting an initial feel for a person, it cannot replace human intuition.
- Should a single score really determine your fate online?
- Is it right that we should be judging people on a single score?
Certainly there are negative implications. People might be sidelined or discriminated against due to a misleading score that is not a true reflection of their actual influence. If the score is misleading, we could make bad decisions against others based on this score. Our own online reputation may be potentially hindered by a narrow misleading score.
How can a single score apply to everyone?
I don’t think it can. If you are in a very niche market I would be very wary over using Klout.
Klout’s recent actions have angered a lot of people. Klout changed their algorithm which caused millions of peoples Klout scores to be lowered. But to be fair to Klout they are trying to improve. They are making efforts to integrate more services into their system. They are also trying to become more transparent helping users to work out how they can improve their overall social media Klout.
Overall, whilst Klout acts as a useful guide, its crude measures means it should be used with caution. Klout is not for everyone – Whilst it is liked by some, its loathed by others. I guess the only way to know is to try it for yourself.
Lilach
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89 Responses to Klout: Should I be bothered
I am Klout neutral, I can tell you all kinds of stories about it and I have a reasonable score (I think, haven’t looked for a while) but no number can tell you what influence you have. It doesn’t measure your real world interaction or email interaction, and people who make assumptions based solely on a Klout score are pretty silly.
Sarah recently posted..Better Blogging: Do you analyse your blog content? #blogging
Twitter: saraharrow
Thanks Sarah. I am too. I must admit I’m not very happy with what they’ve done recently, the changes in their algorithm don’t reflect well and the controversial news stories are shocking.
I think Klout is a reasonably good guide but you really do need to look at other things as well and not rely on it solely.
Twitter: lilachbullock
Perhaps Klout is best used to measure which people make silly assumptions and cull them out from the rest who are more tolerant, broad-minded, and accepting of others who choose to not use Social Media so much while online. Privacy does not automatically equal weak reputation. In fact, most people who are very private are very popular. Take just about any movie star you can think of and try to find their personal social media accounts and email addresses. They are private and have others operating those vehicles to drive their public relations – unless they are Justin Bieber (who, by the way, is also forced to delegate social media to others because he is busy growing up and having an offline life). Try measuring someone Jennifer Aniston’s “Klout”. She gets lots of searches online for her name. She is very influential and popular. But somehow I doubt she sits around all day tweeting, facebooking, etc. She’d never get anything else done.
All told, “Klout” is for people who don’t mind having all their time devoted to social media activity online. The rest of us have other focus in our work, other reasons for being online, and certainly good reasons for not living our entire lives online. We derive our feeling good about ourselves from human interaction and feedback, rather than a Klout score.
Thanks Ellie, appreciate your comment:) The ironic thing is that someone like Justin Bieber will have a really high Klout – which goes against what Klout is about – it’s not about the number of followers but engagement. Hmmm I don’t see Justin engaging (or even a pretend Justin lol) with his followers…
Twitter: lilachbullock
It’s actually not at all about engagement, and social media marketing isn’t either (I don’t know where people get this at) it’s about influence, which is totally different. Justin Beiber is by far the most influential person on Twitter which is where Klout gets the majority of it’s data. I don’t personally like him, but the majority of Twitter users are fans of music and celebrity. Hundreds of Hash Tags are created related to Beiber everyday, there are millions of accounts using a variation of his name, and his tweets go viral like bird flu. Anyone who gets over 1,000 re-tweets for every tweet will have a huge Klout Score. Likewise, Robert Scoble’s score recently jumped because his posts on Google+ go viral on that network.
Engagement helps infleunce, but influence is why businesses want to give stuff to people so they will tweet about it, not engagement. Look at it like this, engagement replying to me on your blog, which is to add value to discussion and become better acquainted with me, but influence is causing me to take an action like subscribing to your newsletter because you say it’s valuable, buying your book because you say it’s worth $9.99, or taking an action that requires investment. It is very possible to have Influence with little engagement, especially if you’re popular, and it’s also possible to have tons of engagement with little influence. You can do a ton of different things with social media, including using it as a customer care depot, or market research (which takes engagement), but selling, marketing and advertising takes influence. Engagement usually drops off after you get a verry large following because it’s just not possible to respond to 100k people a day, so you’ll rarely see someone like Beiber engaging with followers, but I would bet he actively listens.
Twitter: etelligence
Thanks Adam for your comment:)
You’ve really hit the nail on the head here and I think explained a lot as to why celebrities have such a high Klout when they clearly spend no time engaging with their followers.
Really appreciate your comment – although I doubt Just Beiber actively listens to his tweets…:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Thanks for the insight. I am not a fan of this and i agree with Sarah, we cannot be put into a box or given a number. Networking is not that simple and although metrics are a good guideline, all metrics are flawed in one way or another.
When I first got into medicine I was in the US Navy. Time and time again I would tell the staff, look at the patient, then look at the machines and correlate the data with how the patient looks. In other words “Nurse the patient, not the machines”. We have tools, but they are just that – tools.
Anna Strickland recently posted..Perfect Practice Prevents Poor Performance
Thanks Anna, I too agree, Klout is a tool and you shouldn’t rely on it alone.
Twitter: lilachbullock
If you are in business and using social media to spread your marketing message, then there is only one score that you need to focus on. It’s called PROFIT.
That’s it – nothing else.
The sole aim of Klout and others like it is to build a database of users that they can sell on at some stage. The best thing to do is stop playing their game and get on with real work.
Thanks David – Completely spot on – business is all about Profit not vanity:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Surely any successful business is based upon success and results, not profit? :/
I agree that one tool alone is not enough to convey what a person is capable of, but in this instance, I don’t think you can ignore it because in a world of and robbers and fraud, you want to do what you can to protect yourself. The Klout score cannot be cheated or bribed to say something because it uses an algorithm that we are all subject to.
Sorry, but I am Pro anything that makes it easier for someone to get an instand idea what someone is really about – would you use this as the only means of research? Of course not, but what a fantastic place to start!
Andy
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Thanks Andy. I agree to some extent, Klout shouldn’t be ignored as it is a good guide but with the recent changes in their algorithms plus the bad press they’ve had it’s been very damaging to their reputation and a lot of people have less faith in Klout and the scoring process.
Twitter: lilachbullock
To be quite honest, aside from odd individuals, such as yourself, I really haven’t seen much of what I would call ‘bad press’. Happy to read some articles by trusted sources if you have any though?
Andy Drinkwater recently posted..Social Nonsense – is it really all necessary?
Thanks Andy, if you Google Klout + bad press you’re see a lot of people annoyed about the recent changes. Here’s an article that’s useful about it http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/klout-joe-fernandez-steve-martin-la-story-daily-telegraph_b45290
Twitter: lilachbullock
I totally agree with you Dave. As much as I agree with Lilach’s overview, I thought more attention should have been put on that universal measurement of business success, $$. I think Klout is onto something, but they have ways to go, and i don’t think their job will ever be completed, just like in case of rankings that search engines apply to content out on WWW. New factors will come in, and older factors will need to be disregarded as users fidn sneaky ways around them.
I tried Klout and I think it’s a nifty piece of web technology.
Twitter: dominikras
Hiya, good article, Klout is ok as a tool, like most of them, how could it possibly be absolutely accurate, and yes mine went down to 50 odd from 63 since change, i use also twitter grader and peer index, but we all now the true measure of our work by the quality of the leads we create and get work from them.
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Twitter: sifu33
Thanks Paul. Yes I agree, my Klout also went down! I think it was about 77 and now it’s 64 although I haven’t done anything different – so who knows why?!!!
Twitter: lilachbullock
I blogged about Klout back in May:
http://www.taxhelp.uk.com/what-your-real-performance-number/
As with all numbers, they can be a guideline but only a guideline – as David says, the number that really matters is profit.
James McBrearty recently posted..Business networking & the butterfly effect, thanks to BNI
Thanks James, will check out the article:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
I confess that I’m confused by what Klout can and cannot do . . . your article is very good and helped to clarify many issues. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been less active in LinkedIn my score has dropped, which probably is indicative of less influence. As your other readers have pointed out, those scores still do not reflect true influence – many of my interactions on LinkedIn were in discussions that rambled on and went nowhere (one of the reasons I’m not as active). Still, I pay attention when I see the drop in my score so I see Klout as a reminder that I can, and should, endeavor to reach a bigger audience.
Twitter: LaRaeQuy
Thanks, your Klout score could have been because of LinkedIn but to be honest I still don’t understand how they’ve changed things. If anything each day I spend more time on the various different networks and each day my networks grows… and yet my score dropped so go figure!
I do think it’s a good gage as you can get a rough idea but at the same time as long as you are engaging with your network and spending quality time on there AND getting the results that you want then I think that’s what’s important. Klout is a tool and it’s useful but their measurements aren’t 100% acurate.
Twitter: lilachbullock
I am not familiar with Klout but this Lilach has done a really good job of explaining that to me.
Thanks Lilach
Emmanuel Olonade recently posted..Andrew Rondeau Interview – Founder of WeBuildYourBlog.com
Twitter: Incomescene
All of these Guidelines and Metric producers have a Place….
But we measure our Income and expenses to determine our Internet Authority.
I know several people who have Great Reach, Tons of Followers, etc and can barely pay their Hosting bill.
A BUSINESS person can utilize these tools but do not necessarily Obsess.
Our clients learn quickly WHAT their customers base wants and focus on providing those NEEDS
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Twitter: ChuckBartok
Thanks Chuck, you’re quite right, I also know lots of people with a large network – it doesn’t necessarily equal money.
Also everyone is different, not everyone needs (or wants) a large network, does that mean they should have a lesser Klout score?
As others have said, at the end of the day business is about profit and whilst it’s useful to have the various different tools to measure, none of them offer 100% realistic results.
Twitter: lilachbullock
We have seen too many aspiring Business persons spend way too much time studying charts and graphs instead of picking up the phone and engaging the prospect (regardless how many)
We have encouraged and shown our Facebook Fans HOW TO develop a relationship with like minds through engaging in PM and group conversation…
And then yes go to their Info Page and jot down phone number, send a PM and ask when would be a good time to call and get to know each other better.
This activity will never show on metrics But will Increase Cash Flow ~~smile~~
Chuck Bartok recently posted..More on Creating Effective Facebook Fan Pages
Twitter: ChuckBartok
Thanks Chuck, I can see why you’re smiling:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
I like Klout, just as a way to get a general idea of how I’m doing. You really have to take it with a grain of salt and know that its a ballpark figure.
Bob
Bob Guzeman from UBMighty Success Strategies recently posted..Personal Branding Narrows My Focus
Thanks Bob. I agree whilst I use Klout to get a general idea I know it’s just a rough guide.
Twitter: lilachbullock
Your post has just compounded the confusion that I was already experiencing with regards Klout. We have a different Klout score when we sign in with Twitter than when we sign in with Facebook, however I know that I loaded both media logins when I set up the account! And since the algorithm tweak, our scores for each media login peaked and are gradually going downhill even though the participation by us and to us hasn’t changed! Go figure! (I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t get it either!)
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That’s such a pain! I would re-login and see what happens. The majority of people’s Klout scores went down when they recently changed the algorithm – I guess that’s why a lot of people got annoyed (ahh so there are a lot of people who DO care about their Klout score!:)).
I wouldn’t worry too much over it though, as long as your participation hasn’t changed:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Great article on Klout, Lilach!
As Klout has been doing a complete revamp of their system it is a bit of a mess at the moment. Lots of people found their scores drop like pigeons in London fog.
Recently I wrote an article about the relationship between Klout and Triberr which you might find interesting. You can check it out here if you have the time:
http://facebook-advertising-marketing.com/triberr-and-klout-what-are-these-strange-new-social-websites/
Twitter: krisolin
Thanks Kris – well I was one of the pigeons lol Let’s hope Klout sorts it out as they have a lot of unhappy people at the moment.
Will check out your article, thanks for sharing:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Thank you for writing a great article Lilach on Klout. I have trying to fathom out what the relevance of your score to your interaction has been for a few weeks. I noticed my score drop from a respectable 67 to somewhere near 45 not sure why and to be honest was not really bothered.
I measure my success on the interactions I get via my blog, emails and other media nit just facebook twitter or LinkedIn
I have learned alot from this article.
Twitter: workfmhomediva
Thanks Collette. I wouldn’t read too much into the reason why your score has dropped, it appears that the majority of us have had their scores dropped and yet we’re all continuing to participate as much if not more than before.
I think you have a good approach as to how you measure your interactions, Klout is merely a guide and shouldn’t be taken too seriously – particularly in the recent light of all their changes and problems.
Twitter: lilachbullock
I have two twitter accounts, a personal one and a business one. The first one, I created when I was doing an online course about how to use social media, so it was kind of a “test” account. Once I had a fair idea how it all worked I created the business account and started working primarily with that one… when I discovered Klout via a twitter aquaintance, I linked all my other social media accounts to my business account.
After a few months I had a klout score of 67 on the business account, but guess what… My “test” account, that is still around but not nearly as active as the business account, had a score of 57. There is NO WAY that that could be even remotely correct… I know what I had to do to get the 67 on the business account, The “test” account is also purely twitter and isn’t even linked to any other SM account. From then on I started to take the whole Klout score thing with a serious grain of salt. A few weeks ago, when they did the big algorithm correction and I saw some of the most infuencial people I know go from 87 to 65 (I miself dropped from 65 to 48), I decided to drop out of klout. I disconnected all my accounts and haven’t checked ever since.
For me it was not the end of the world, but I feel really sorry for those people who are evaluated in their jobs based on their klout score…
Thanks for sharing Lilach… interesting read
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Thanks Raf. I too take it with a pinch of salt. It is useful as a rough guide but it’s very frustrating. My score went dramatically down too, from 78 to 64.
As long as you’re continuing with interacting with people across your social networks, building relationships and engaging etc. I wouldn’t worry too much.
Klout has had a knock in their reputation and I think they need to focus on getting their “scores” up before they do anything else!
Twitter: lilachbullock
I watched my Klout score shoot up to 68 and then drop all the way down to 47 after only a week offline. (Was in the hospital, so was unavoidable).
I’ve sort of lost faith in it’s accuracy since.
I saw your comment about your own drop from 78 to 64. Was there anything you did that you are aware of to precipitate the drop?
Warren recently posted..Creating a Vision Statement
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
Thanks Warren – hope you’re better now.
I didn’t make any changes, I’m pretty consistent with my social media and if anything every day it grows slightly. I wasn’t the only one that saw their klout score go down, many “influential” people with higher scores saw a decline.
Twitter: lilachbullock
Hi Lilach,
I never heard of Klout before, it sounds interesting thougn.. for sure will check it out.
thanks for sharing.
Twitter: easthersudharta
Thanks Easther, pleased you found it useful.
Twitter: lilachbullock
Wow great article on Klout
I have heard of Klout but havent really understood it to be fair but after reading this it has made it clear to me of the positives and negatives of using klout, thanks for sharing such a great post i love learning something new
Twitter: lewys_sfm
Thanks Lewys appreciate your comment. Klout’s an interesting topic at the moment particularly with all their recent changes in the algorithms.
Twitter: lilachbullock
I don’t believe Klout has any algorithms – not sophisticated ones anyway.
I’ll go for a week doing almost nothing in social media and my Klout score doesn’t change. Last month, I got retweeted by Guardian Style, resulting in dozens of retweets, several favourites, hundreds of new followers and a surge in traffic to the blog. My Klout score took no notice, nudging down a couple of points while insisting that my “influential topics” were “Pakistan” (mentioned once on Twitter in July) and “College” (a word I don’t think I’ve ever used online).
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Thanks Patrick, interesting. Klout is very peculiar at the moment and has been for some time! It’s a shame as it used to be quite well respected but since they made the changes it’s received so much negativity.
Twitter: lilachbullock
wow…i has KLOUT but I only know the details today. True, your social buzz or presence in social media online may be more important than SEO. Thanks for great post.
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Thanks Viviana, my pleasure:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
One more thing I forgot to mention: When I had a high Klout score they were constantly sending me gifts (Movie premier tickets etc.) Now that I’m sitting lower that hasn’t happened! LOL So I guess there are some perks to having a higher score other than just the perceived “ego value” it has for many!
Warren recently posted..Creating a Vision Statement
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
That’s interesting Warren, I certainly never received any gifts! What score did you you have?
Twitter: lilachbullock
It was 68 at the time!
Guess I’ll have to get to work on building it back up!
Warren recently posted..Creating a Vision Statement
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
Well why didn’t I get any gifts then?! Mine was 78… Klout doesn’t follow through with anything clearly lol
Twitter: lilachbullock
Perhaps not as many sponsors in the UK? 78 is a nice score by the way! Congrats!
Warren recently posted..Creating a Vision Statement
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
Well it was 78, it dropped right down to 64 and then dropped again to 63…!! I must admit I’ve lost a bit of faith in Klout with all their recent changes and problems they’ve had. It doesn’t make sense how Klout scores have dropped when people like us haven’t changed our interactions, if anything we’re always engaging more…
Twitter: lilachbullock
One thing different on my part was I was actively trying to grow my followers at the time I seemed to have the highest score when I was growing the fastest. I’ve since stopped trying to grow it (Focused elsewhere at the moment). I know follower count isn’t the be all and end all for Klout, but it did seem to tie in with my own rise and fall where the score was concerned. I’m going to try and catch up to you and we can see if my Klout score rises accordingly!
4000 more followers here we come!
Warren recently posted..Standing out in a crowd of Bloggers
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
Warren, I believe the Klout score has nothing to do with the amount of followers you have. So they say anyway. Apparently it’s to do with your interactions and engagement. So how come the likes of celebrities who hardly follow anyone but have 1,00000+ followers and never engage with anyone have a higher score I don’t know. I think they make up the scores as they go along! I wouldn’t worry too much about it and I certainly wouldn’t try to get more followers just to get your Klout score up – they’re probably change the algorithms again lol
Twitter: lilachbullock
Thought I’d follow up since I left this comment. I decided to do a year end Twitter Blitz in order to drive my follower count up before the year came to an end, and was curious if the focus on growth would change my Klout score or not.
Despite adding several thousand followers, it remained where it had dropped to. 46
I have made a point of engaging more during this time, so I’m not really sure what Klout is looking for these days.
Warren recently posted..My Year End Twitter Blitz
Twitter: plrnetmarketing
Thanks Warren:) Klout seems to take a while for the scores to change, also I’ve noticed they don’t tend to jump up, it’s a very gradual rise. I really wouldn’t worry too much about your score, as long as you’re engaging with your audience then you should be happy:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Honestly Klout has no clout. It doesn’t measure your influence online. What it does measure is how acrtive you are. The best thing you can do is be super active on Facebook. Then you score increase enormously.
They do rate minors. Suddenly my 17 year old nephew was listed by Klout as someone I have influence over. The only thing he does is communicate with about 500 other high school students in the same town. But he still scores higher than me.
There is an alternative to Klout called PeerIndex www. peerindex.com. The interesting thing is that my score is 10 points higher with them.
Have stopped paying any attention to Klout. The only reason I haven’t terminated my accout is because it could potentially cause problems not to be rated in case some company use it to rate people. Once more people understand how flawed their measurements are I will definitely terminate my account.
So if you want to increase your score on Klout start posting as much as you can on Facebook because it’s a good measurement on how active you are on Facebook (not on Linkedin). It doesn’t matter if you communicate with kids or grown ups or write about rubbish, your score will increase.
Thanks Catarina. I’m inclined to agree with you at the moment! I hope Klout sort it out an sharpish as their reputation is going down as quickly as our Klout scores are:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Hi Lilach,
I tried Klout out of curiosity a while back and found it interesting but I wasn’t very impressed overall and haven’t been back. I’m not worried about the Klout score, people will be much more influenced by their interactions with me than some score.
Stacy
Stacy recently posted..20 Ways to Not Make Money Online
Twitter: growwithstacy
Thanks Stacy. As much as I think Klout is a good guide there are many ways you can see how people are on Social Media. It should be purely about the interactions they have, not how many followers etc. Although this is what Klout says it does but if you look at a celebrity who has 1 million twitter followers they will have around a 100 Klout score even though this person has no engagement with hardly any of their followers…. so how do they work that one out then!!
Twitter: lilachbullock
I’ve heard a lot of negatives about Klout than the positives and I really feel that Klout is not being fair. Your score can tremendously go up if your tweet gets retweeted by a celebrity at the same time you can also get slapped by Klout for getting retweet from a person who is quite new to the biz. I’m neutral with Klout, never relied on it for anything so far, except occasionally looking at the number I’ve got.
Thanks Jane. I used to rely on it a lot more before they changed their algorithms. I still think it’s a reasonably OK guide but I also feel they’ve lost a lot of their clout with all the recent changes and bad press.
I’m interested to see how they improve their own Klout!
Twitter: lilachbullock
Hi Lilach,
I have not tried Klout out, eventhough there is so much buzz about it. I guess it’s not in my routine…ha ha
It’s great I can learn so much about it from this post, without registering.
Thanks for the insights into how it works.
Tosin
Twitter: thowsyne
Thanks Tosin, appreciate your comment. It’s free to register with Klout and very simple to do, you may be intrigued to see what all the fuss – or rather chatter is about:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Lilach,
My company specialises in Contact Centre solutions. An area keeping us very busy over the last 18 months or so is bringing Social-Media and Social Engagement into the enterprise contact centre. I’ve seen evidence first hand that suggests that the more successful an enterprise is with their Social Media strategy the more likely it is that those customers they reach via the media also ‘retaliate’ with Customer Service or Customer Care type interactions.
When we isolate a customer care social media interaction, we can bring it easily into the Contact Centre for management and resolution. On its way into the Contact Centre, that interaction can be very usefully scored for a number of factors that help the ‘routing strategy’ to decide who should deal with it, how quickly it needs to be dealt with, and what ‘audience’ saw that complaint, as an example.
We typically measure 4 metrics for each interaction targeted to Customer Service;
1 – Actionability
Is there anything we can do about this comment?
2 – Classification
What is the comment about? Product issue, Sales Issue, billing issue, delivery issue etc
3 – Sentiment
Was it a positive, neutral or negative reflection?
4 – Influence
How influencial is the ‘actor’ behind the comment. How many people could see it? What likelyhood is there that the interaction will be ‘liked’ Retweeted etc
The combination of all 4 of these factors allows us to be extremely efficient, not only in determining the overall ‘priority’ of an social media interaction, but who should deal with it. We also cleverly link this interaction to the underlying customer, and can immediately show the customer services representative how this social comment relates to the overall customer journey and the customer experience across all media and channels over which they engage; SMS, Telephone, eMail, Web-Chat and so on.
To this end, some form of measurement like @Klout is required. We typically use 2 engines in our routing strategy; the other being @peerindex. Now, the scoring has its drawbacks and benefits; but it is better than nothing. In the absence specifically of knowing WHO THE CUSTOMER is it is important to know how important it could be to the enterprise to know how important it is to ENGAGE and RESPOND. Perhaps, at some time later in the customer journey can we marry the vanity ACTOR to the actual underlying customer; especially if the customer is using an ALIAS or a profile that doesn’t clearly indicate who they actually are.
To this end, we are finding @klout and @peerindex to be invaluable. I think you’ll be extremely surprised and interested in the types of things that enterprises are doing with this data! It is an incredibly powerful paradigm. One thing for sure, social-influence is here to stay. I think we are just seeing the ‘jelly wobble’ and stabilisation of the first phase of its realisation.
Thanks for the article!
@dave_t_pilot
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Thanks so much Dave:) This is very interesting and helpful. I do believe that measuring social media is important – I use it myself, not only for my clients but also for myself. But at the same time I have been very disappointed with the way Klout has made it’s changes in the algorithms. I still use it but don’t read as much into it as I used to.
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Lilach–There’s one correction to this post I am compelled to make. This easily might have been un-intentional, when you say:
“After signing up, you are given a Klout score.”
Simply not true. Of the 100 million Klout profiles as many as 95 million are profiles created by Klout without the person’s permission. They simply scrape social media–Tweets, Facebook + Google+ posts, etc–and create a Klout score of anyone they find—with or without that person’s permission.
It’s this “non opt-in” model that’s one of the fundamental objections many people have to Klout. That’s one more reason I went to Klout.com and deleted my profile.
Thanks Rohn, yes you’re quite right which is why there are now lots of issues with Klout. That is supposed to be the procedure though!
Twitter: lilachbullock
I haven’t read through all the comments and someone may have already said this but my opinion is simple. It’s one tool of many that we can use. No one tool does it all in any industry. I like klout cuz it encourages me to be a better social media guy.
Thanks Nathan. Whilst I still use Klout I don’t rely on it too much and tend to dig a little deeper too:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Sorry, but I think most people in this thread are missing the primary point.
It’s about how you use Klout, it’s about how Klout uses you.
Right now Klout scores–dim, poorly managed, unaccountable–are running in Salesforce, Peoplesoft, HR systems and Job Offerings. Klout scores are a primary means by which business is determining your worth in social media.
And they scrape social media content to create profiles that include kids under 18, and in some cases under 13. And they have no answer for this other than they are following the letter of the law. They do not observe nor participate in social media as an organization for any reason other than greed. Some see this as good fun entrepreneurial capitalism. Some see it as a minor development step in the science of measuring social influence. Still others see it as inevitable, and something you disengage with at your own risk.
I see Klout as despicable and indefensible, as it should be to anyone who really considers matters seriously. You may choose to join them, or sit on the sidelines for now, but I won’t–and you shouldn’t. This is the flash point for serious issues of how social media survives in an era of venture capital wolves and the absence of clear ethical standards.
Unless you and others like you stop participating in Klout, Klout will win. They will become the actual “standard for influence,” because of their first mover advantage and the $100 million US they have backing them.
My point is that it’s not about how you use Klout. It’s about how Klout uses us. Please consider this as “you use” Klout. Thanks-RJ
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Thanks for your comment Rohn Jay:) I’ve noticed a few people have disabled their Klout accounts although I believe if you wish to re-sign up again it takes a while for your Klout score to go back up again.
I think it’s disgusting that they have taken kids profiles and this has really damaged their Klout! I also find it frustrating that someone like Justin Bieber has a Klout of 100 when he doesn’t take the time to engage with any of his followers and all he has is a ridiculously large amount of followers (which is something that Klout maintains their scores are not based on!!)
I take Klout with a pinch of salt, I now appreciate that it’s more about how influential you are and see it purely as a guide. I still think it has it’s uses but would urge anyone not to just rely on Klout and look at the bigger picture as it were.
Twitter: lilachbullock
In the above post the second line should read:
“It’s NOT about how you use Klout, it’s about how Klout uses you.”
Thanks-RJ
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Thanks Rohn Jay:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
I am looking forward to 2012, unlike some of my professional colleagues who are less willing to adapt to market conditions.
For professionals I think the right the right frame of mind has to be based on client-centred propositions
where the “value-add” can demonstrated. To quote a recent tweet of mine if you don’t know where you value is then your clients definitely won’t.
Some professionals are still aggrieved about the loss of value in transaction based services but this is inevitable in the long run. The value in commodity services is in how efficiently you execute them and creating volume.
True value comes from expertise in business environments and activities where there is scope for differentiation through expertise, experience and what I call technology leverage. So my message for 2012 is differentiation = value = profit. In my case this includes specialist services for IFA’s, an in-house on-line accounting system for contractors and expert witness services.
Hope this has sparked some thoughts on how you can create value in your businesses in 2012.
@rjbradley
thanks for your comment:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
Awesome lowdown of what Klout does and the drawbacks of Klout. When Klout was FIRST introduced a couple years ago, I thought it was pretty cool. I thought it was an interesting way to see who’s really active.
Until I started actually using it and realizing that the system was incredibly flawed.
People who are not influential in, say, cows, would suddenly become influential about them because they mentioned cows a couple times in their tweets. That is one of the flaws.
As you mentioned, I have been stating for quite some time that we need to get back to basics and not rely on a score to determine who is sociable and who isn’t. I’ll take a look at their Twitter and interact with them before I would ever look at a score.
Awesome look over!
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Thanks Morgan, appreciate your comment:)
Yes you’re quite right, Klout really was a very respected and used tool to measure influence online. Since the algorithms changed and the majority of people’s Klout score lowered people got upset and started investigating more how Klout actually worked and low and behold as you say the system is incredibly flawed.
Twitter: lilachbullock
My purpose in life was to discover Klout and bestow K+ on others. I may need a hobby. I’m trying to rank for Wienermobile. Sad
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Thanks for your comment Astro:)
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Klout can be manipulated. Go to Google Plus, find a popular topic, and get in the middle of a discussion. You will chalk up interactive points, even though people are not interacting with you so much as commenting on the topic.
Also, there are those who will retweet….or use Fiverr to retweet, etc.
Klout also doesn’t consider the number of comments one gets on their blogs. That seems to be a pretty good metric!!!
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Thanks David:) Yes I agree, Klout is heavily manipulated and it’s a shame it doesn’t count number of comments on blogs:)
Twitter: lilachbullock
I personally like klout, but I can understand people’s point of view based on the fact that it doesn’t take into account followers, emails, and instant messages. Human interactions is out of the question, because its NOT in the scope of ONLINE influence. I have a really good klout score and I plan on keeping it that way, but I also recognize that its NOT my true identity. The relationships I build on social media are truly what matter. Thanks for your insight into Klout. I agree its not for everybody.
God bless,
Curt
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Very interesting article, I didn’t know exactly what Klout was ! But I think we shouldn’t take that kind of thing too seriously.
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I don’t really understand how it tells you anything that you don’t already know, and if the numbers that it gives you aren’t wholly reliable anyway, then surely it’s just another tool to get you working on your web presence, which presumably we all know anyway! Plus if that’s true about it being able to access without permission, that’s slightly worrying, though obviously this article is out of date now, so who knows if they’ve fixed it!
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Enjoyed the article.
I suppose if you use Social Media to earn a living,then you should take it seriously because people DO instantly just by looking at that number.
My klout is 53.
Do I care?
Absolutely not!
Then again,I´m on Social Media for pure fun.
Best Wishes
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