Monday, October 17, 2011

@Klout 101 - Where the scores COME from

They seem to have a mind of their own, don't they? Your Klout Scores. The upsy downsy can't figure out why it does what it does when it does it, pretty darned important site. 


Ash Rust, Director of Ranking @ Klout
At Klout, we measure your influence across three factors:
  1. The number of people you influence
  2. The amount you influence those people
  3. How influential they are
Klout- What it is:
Klout.com is a site that scores ones influence and voice in the social media world, in a nutshell. Grades are 1-100, 20 being average. Justin Bieber has a 99, I have a 69, and in my opinion, "good" would be over 60.

If you are unsure as to the importance of Klout, READ ON! You may or may not know, or perhaps you've heard about it, but the internet is changing. Your Google results are different from those of your neighbor because your ACTIONS, and preferences are TRACKED. This allows search engines to "Give you what you want" so to speak. Now your social interaction is being tracked as well, and this score is gradually becoming more and more important. For bloggers, you will get better promotions with betters Klout scores, especially if you have a topic of influence relevant to the company. Businesses are using Klout scores for hiring decisions, and our measure of influence in the cyber world now matters. There is a great article HERE describing the details.

The first step is to sign up for Klout and connect your social networks. Click HERE! It gives Klout a clearer understanding of influence, and it will likely raise the score.

Now I feel it is important to mention, that I am NOT an expert on these things by any means. BUT I am a little crazy for a puzzle, I've analyzed the holy &h*# out of it, and have noticed some things.

The answers are all in the individual scores
True Reach
True Reach is defined by Klout, as the number of people you influence. When you post a message, these people tend to respond or share it. 

There seems to be a proportion between your true reach number and your followers that is acceptable to Klout. When I have giveaways and gain a LOT of new followers, (as you can see in the graph pretty clearly), that do not engage with me, my over-all score drops. I believe that is the key. The amount of followers that you have actually listening to you, (i.e. clicking, replying, retweeting, facebook liking, ANY social interaction) versus your total number of followers. The percentage I had while on the rise was 57%. Now I am 39% and losing about 0.1 overall score per day.

What can you do with this information? First of all, if your score is lower than you'd like, or has been dropping, check out your percentage. If you find it is below 50%, you know that you need to throw some tricks out there to drum up engagement from those followers that have been quiet!
  1. Are you inspiring their Twitter and Facebook followers to take action
  2. Are you providing inside information and links that people can’t get anywhere else? 
  3. Are you engaging with other top influencers and talking passionately about the industry instead of about themselves? 
  4. You should send your own tweets, Facebook updates, Linked­­­In comments, etc. We’ve found that when people are authentic and share their true feelings about their area of expertise, they influence more people to take action and their scores go up.

This brings me to point #2
Engaging with top influencers

Another mystery measure of your Klout score, is the level of influence those that you TALK to have. If I am chatting it up, and getting ALL sorts of interaction with several "LOW score" tweeps, my score will be considerably lower than if I get mild interaction from "HIGH score" tweeps.

Create a COMMENTING STRATEGY
Not sure how?
  1. Use tools like Google Alerts and Twitter to find out what blogs are making impact on your customers.
  2. Develop a list of at least 10 – 15 key blogs that you are going to be engaged in.
  3. Make an informative comment on each of those blogs at least once per week.
  4. Leave your link!
Your Topics of Influence
Who is going to want YOU talking about THEM

In the not too distant future, it is not unreasonable to see our Klout scores being displayed on the computer screens in hotels as we check in. The hotel see's that you are influential in travel, and offers you a complimentary service, room upgrade, or meal.

Your Topics, as defined by Klout, are generated based on users' engagement with your content. Topical influencers are able to engage their audience on a specific subject, even when their overall Klout is lower.

Read about how to LEAD your topics where you want them to be, HERE!

4 comments:

A day in Candiland said...

Lots of great information. This is such a tricky thing. You have helped clear up some questions.

Kerry said...

Thanks so much! I'm def going to bookmark this! I still have so many other questions...like how to link my account to my Facebook page?? I can't find it anywhere (even when I've looked under my settings). I'm beyond lost. :(

Q said...

Thanks! I needed this! :)

Kristin said...

I still scratch my head sometimes when I log into Klout. It makes me batty. I'm still trying to strike the perfect balance with it so my score will climb. It's a process.