As if there is not enough to keep up with in life, sales numbers in our business, bills at home, kids report cards, ballgame scores and now a Klout score. We Americans measure everything. I guess it is important to measure things to strive to be better, but is this too much? Klout is a score or measurement on one’s social media influence. Klout takes a daily measurement of how much interaction happens between something you post and how it is communicated on. So, when you post on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter it really depends on how many friends, followers, comments, likes, shares or retweets you receive on a daily basis determines your score which changes daily.
Klout is a social media score board on a scale of 1-100 that has been around since 2009. The higher your Klout score, the higher your influence on social media. The average social media user will land between 20 and 40 which is not bad. A good Klout score is in the 50’s. Really active social media scores considered really good are in the 60’s and 70’s. When ones Klout score reaches the 80’s or above, you really need to get a life. I mean step away from the computer and go outside from time to time. The higher your Klout score climbs the harder it gets to move up, but the easier it is to drop down. It is challenging.
I am no expert on Klout by any stretch of the imagination, but here is what I have gathered so far. It seems to be geared a lot towards Twitter. The number of organic followers on Twitter will help your score. This along with your retweets, mentions and lists seem to influence your Klout score both positive and negative. The next social media that seems to help you increase your score is Facebook. The number of posts versus your comments, likes and number of friends influences your Klout score both positive and negative. You can post a lot of content but if no one comments or likes it, it will not affect your Klout score positively. Remember, it is all about influence not quanity but quality of your content. Now it seems LinkedIn which is scored by Klout as well seems to have the least influence. I spend my social media time on LinkedIn and have done very well financially on there. The criteria for LinkedIn states connections, likes, and recommendations which in my opinion is not as important as comments, conversations, endorsements and group influence. I find these the most useful, but I guess Klout doesn’t see it my way. Bottom line if you care about your Klout score you need to be most active on Twitter and Facebook and less with LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google + which seem to have less influence as best I can tell. Personally I have no opinion on Foursquare and Instagram, because honestly I just don’t care. It is hard enough to keep up with the “big three”, that is enough for me as a national life insurance broker.
There are other measurables out there that score blogs, social media, online presence, etc. but as best I can tell Klout seems to be the score that carries the most Klout, pun intended. By the way, my Klout scores stay between 49 and 51. I guess it scores on the fact that I am a creature of habit with my postings. I hope this helps those novice like me understand a new piece of the social media puzzle. Sign up for free at http://klout.com/home using your Twitter or Facebook account to see your score. Then tell us your Klout score.
“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”—Vince Lombardi
Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger and team leader with over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.
Recently klout allows you to connect other networks such as Facebook, Youtube, Foursquare and other networks. You can connect your foursquare despite only having less than 100 friends there and It will helpe you to increase your klout score (only a point). Klout mentioned that adding new networks will not decrease your klout score, so you should try to connect it too. I have friends that were able to increase their klout score by 3 points by adding only one addition network.Start a small community.
Lynn, that is an awesome tip. But as I stated in the article. It is all I can do to keep up with the “Big Three’. To add Foursquare, Pinterest, Instagram is just more work than it is worth for me to just increase my Klout score. You understand this far more than I do. I was just facinated a company figured out how to make money by scoring peoples social media influence. Is this a great country or what?!
Build a small community. This is a great way to increase your klout score. The reason is because when you have a small community of your own, you’ll be able to get retweets and drive conversations easily comparee to just sharing RSS tweets which brings no value when you don’t have a community to read them.
I do understand that point. I wonder why Klout doesn’t seem to give as much value to LinkedIn groups as it seems to give Twitter and facebook?
I need help myself!!!!!
Tim, your posts are always fun to read and full of good info. Thanks for taking the time from your day to post.
You are very kind Lynn, thank you. It is nice to know my time is well spent.
I’ve gotten a few freebies in the past but nowhere near what my college age kid. Klout gave him a Samsung Galaxy camera worth $450.
Noel, are you serious? They give prizes for Klout scores? I have not heard of that. All I Heard about was people getting promotions at work or hired for having good Klout scores, which I don’t know if it is true or not.
Yes. I did not believe it at first. But when I saw his digital camera with wifi connectivity, I signed up. He attends a private university and has convinced a lot of his fellow students and frat bro’s to ‘klout’. Not sure about work related ‘klout’. He is currently interning with one of the Big 4 and has since been offered a permanent job once he graduates next year. I don’t think it was because of klout.
Noel, that just blows my mind. The way some of these companies’ business models work to earn revenue just astonds me. I really appreciate you sharing these comments.
Very Interesting!