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Photo Credit: David Elfanbaum on Flickr
Since Virgin Atlantic Airlines started to give flights away to online influencers, my perception is that people on Twitter have become obsessed with their Klout scores. I do understand that we all want to be influential in our social circles and have our key messages noticed by our audience. Last week, when I believed that my Klout was 7, I had a very defensive reaction to being rated by the website. However, after a long conversation with a friend about the pros and cons of Klout, I decided to pay the website a second visit and sign up for the service.
I believe that having a website telling you how influential you are can be great for your ego, but shouldn’t you know it already? Why are we (social networks users, marketers, companies) giving so much power to an algorithm? I know it’s based on the same old google search science, but should we really trust a tool that allow a social media campaign based on very old school concepts achieve one of the highest Klout rates with an imaginary man?
Please, don’t get me wrong. As a marketer I love the fact that we have another free tool to measure our online campaigns. I do believe that klout.com is allowing us to easily identify the key community influencers and sort out the spammers from the real people. However, I can’t get over the fact that the people who really influence my opinions have low Klout scores or that some celebrities have high scores when they don’t actually engage with their audiences. It seems that all that we’ve been studying and exploring on Twitter, Facebook, etc is a lie, since we all embrace another measurement tool to please clients who require numbers to justify our pay checks.
Call me crazy, but all this Klout hysteria brought me back to the old competition between marketing and sales departments. Yes, at the end of the day we all want our client/company/non-profit to succeed, but what do we actually want to create? Short-term sales or brand awareness?
I’ve thought a lot about Klout too.
I remember being surprised I had any Klout at all when I first looked at my rating on Hootsuite. Sure, it’s not very high but I still scratched my head, wondering how I had any at all! [I figure I have it by default because of who I am following.]
I also found it interesting when I evaluated Klout scores related to some of my clients and their followers. The people / sites I thought would be influential weren’t. Which then made me question the Klout scores even more.
I think you’ve given me a kick in the pants to start looking at this again. Thanks for the post.
@vheringer Ah gotcha. Yup, I read it. You’re *that* influential
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The question is… Who are you influencing? Soon people will figure out how to work the system and it will become an art form to get klout just like SEO. I guess we should thank them for creating new jobs!
Very timely post. Totally agree with you, in that we shouldn’t have to count solely on a service like Klout to have an idea of how influential we are.
Your post gave me the kick-start that I needed to write one of my own, exploring another angle of this whole thing. Obviously, I linked to yours! (http://bit.ly/KloutDeep)
Keep them coming!
@Rebecca,
You’re welcome! Thank YOU for your feedback!
Yes… measurement tools can make our job too obvious sometimes. I still read people’s timelines before adding them to any of my social networks. Common sense is still the best way to go!
@Sarah,
You’re so right! We probably already have people who know how to work the system and don’t use social networks to, let’s say, socialize. There are so many spammers with high klout scores. Go to klout.com and check @jesus reputation!
@Guacira,
Thanks for the link love! It’s great to have your opinion added to this discussion. And yes, “diga-me com quem andas, eu te direi quem és.” Apparently, the same old laws of social networking are applicable to social media as well. We all have a well-developed sixth sense when it comes to identifying spammers and posers.
Great blog post!
@vheringer 7? I see you’re at 38.
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@colene That’s my “old” Klout. I hit refresh on klout,.com last week & discovered that I can influence ppl! So, you read my blog?
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@colene I might be very influential then! Seriously, I am not joking…
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@vheringer Thank you for the link to the blog post, lovely!
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It was great to see you pick up my Flickr image! The Creative Commons license is a wonderful tool.