By Rob Millis
Love it or hate it, Klout is a very useful tool that tracks your social networking influence. Klout is like a credit score, but for social networking. The system constantly updates your score based on how much you are engaging with your social network, and how much they engage with you. If you’re inactive for a few days, your score will begin to drop; if you have a hugely popular post to Facebook it will quickly rise.
The constantly moving Klout score can be a great informal gauge of your activity, and the way Klout sorts your most popular activity can be a surprisingly effective way to monitor the efficacy of your social media strategy. Under a list of your “moments” Klout highlights your most popular posts to Facebook and Twitter, showing who has engaged with your posts and other content, and also who you have reached out to in comments and replies. Below each entry you’ll also see the Klout scores of everyone who has engaged with that post. It is worth keeping an eye on these to make sure you aren’t ignoring someone who is hugely influential.
Something as subjective as influence is challenging to pin down, but total accuracy isn’t necessary for Klout to be a very useful tool. While not an absolute measure of influence, Klout offers the most useful overview of activity and engagement on social networks that I’ve seen yet. And if you’re new to social networking, or can’t quite figure out when or how a public announcement becomes popular (or doesn’t), Klout provides a simple way to see what is working for you.
More important than the raw scores are the engagement tracking and the way the Klout score “gamifies” your activity, incentivizing you to stay in touch with your audience in order to keep your score up. Beyond the competitive instincts inside us all, Klout also works with a variety of promotional partners to line up real world rewards and discounts for you when your score gets high enough. From discounted printing to free use of cars, the more influential you are, the better your perks. That may not be your reason to use the system, but it’s a nice pat on the back when you’ve been working hard to reach your audience.
Of course it’s important to note that Klout doesn’t give you bonus points for spamming everyone who follows you on Twitter. There are certainly ways to tweak the score a bit if that’s all you care about, but the score is most meaningful when used to track your own goals and continually improve your own engagement. If you are having real exchanges with people who share your interests, your Klout score will naturally go up — and so will your sales.
When you first sign in, to Klout, tweet me and let me know. If you’re regularly posting great stuff, I’ll do my best to share it and you should be able to see the engagement in your Klout dashboard soon after.
Rob Millis is the founder of Dynamo Media and one of the creators behind the Dynamo Player, the first online pay-per-view platform freely available to independent filmmakers. Rob was an early pioneer of online video production and distribution, and has been a founder, investor or advisor with several online media and industrial technology companies. You can find Rob on Twitter at @robmillis or learn more about Dynamo at http://www.DynamoPlayer.com
