Tool Tuesday - Klout

Clout:  noun pull; strong influence; muscle, especially political power

Klout: noun a tool designed to measure one's clout in social media

By now, you may have heard of Klout.com.  It's an amazing thing.  At it's core, it's a combination of mathematics and algorithms that is supposed to display your reach, your presence, and your influence in social networks that you connect to Klout.  But, when you lift it up to a closer inspection, there is a lot more than a simple score.

First thing is first, if you don't have a Klout account, you can set one up at Klout.com or you can log in with Facebook or Twitter.  The first thing you will do is add networks to your Klout account.  You can add any combination, or one of, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, Instagram, Tumbler, Blogger, Wordpress, Last.fm, or Flicker.  Whew, I'm tired just listing them.

After you connect your accounts you are then greeted with your first summarized Klout score, which will look like this:

Now, first I must say, the mistake everyone makes, self included, is thinking that the higher that number is, the better things are.  This could not be further from the truth!  There are some key indicators though, and here's how you can, once knowing said number, see if your personal strategy is reflected in your actions.

The first thing I like to look at is my Klout Style.  This is found by clicking on your name in the upper right and then on Klout Style on the left hand menu of the new page.  Style uses a similar method to a magic quadrant and shows you a varying scale of where you land, based on your activity.  For example, here is mine:

This alone can immediately tell you if you are aligned to your strategy.  In my example, I am "Focused" and "Consistent" which directly aligns to my strategy for my connected platforms on Klout.  I personally have LinkedIn, Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare connected only.  As such, I tend to ensure that what and how I talk about things on those platforms is steady and similar, and in this case, Klout confirms that.  If I saw myself at the Consistent end but maybe a box higher, I may become concerned I'm roaming too much on my topics.  

Perhaps yours shows you in the upper left or lower left corners?  Neither is bad, in fact none of this is bad, which is myth some people need to be made aware of.  If I'm new to social media, this should show me as more Casual or Listening than anything else.  If it said I was Focused and Consistent, well, it wouldn't carry much Klout now would it?

So now we know a bit more about Style, what about Topics and Influencers?  Topics are interesting to me as at times, I've seen Klout mark a topic in my "top 5" and I've made only two or three comments on it.  Sometimes it seems that "recency" can trump "actual volume" so buyer  beware on this.  So if you are a game manufacturer and you see "dog walking" in your top 5 Topics, double check you haven't made a few comments recently about walking Fido around the block, or you can do what I do, which is just delete the "randomly" added Topics that don't align to your strategy.  No worries, it won't impact your score, but it could make managing your account a bit simpler.

Influences is a very interesting menu as well.  This will have two tabs, and show you both who you influence and who is influenced by you.  Now, similar to the "secret sauce" I don't have a direct feed into the math behind this, so I take Klout at it's face value, but for the most part, it's spot on.  People who retweet me, or comment on my postings on my platforms tend to show up in my "you influence" menu.  While at the same time, those I retweet or comment on show up in the "your influencers" menu.  In either case, I find it an interesting review to see what I know about those people's styles, and if them being an influencer for me is something I'd say aligns with my persona strategy.  

If you have other friends or colleagues on Klout, you can give them +K points in specific topics as well, which is a very nice way of showing the world, "Hey, this guy knows what he is talking about.".  At times, yes, it can be gamed, like any other system similar in nature, but I stand by my moniker that it is really hard to trick the internet, and even harder to trick those connected to it.  Sooner or later, gamed accounts can be seen a mile away.

This is only the tip of the iceberg with Klout as well.  There is a lot of useful information in the tool, if you are inclined to check it out.  I will defiantly warn you not to get number envy though.  It's easy, it happens, we're human and for some reason, human's like big numbers, but in Klout's case, it's more of a baseline than an actual grade.  So as you add a potential new tool to your tool box, remember what it is used for, what it can be used for, and if it will help you achieve your goals!