It's been a summer by the numbers: record-breaking highs in the Midwest, rainfall toted inch-by-longed-for-inch in drought-stricken areas, gold, silver, and bronze medal counts from the Olympics, and poll numbers, poll numbers, poll numbers.
I've kept tabs on all of the above but have been ignoring the monthly report of my Klout score. Update: I checked it as research for this post. Klout believes I'm influential about twenty topics, including Paris Reading Pennsylvania
What's "Klout?" It's the measure—a number between 1 and 100--of a person's influence via social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumbler, LinkedIn. A recent change in the algorithm Klout uses takes in Wikipedia information and finally allowed President Obama to score higher than Justin Bieber.
Patricia Redsicker wrote an even-handed article on Klout as a determiner of value for Social Media Examiner. (Thanks to Lisa Hall-Wilson for pointing it out.) Whether or not you aspire to influence others, read this piece. Why? Here's Redsicker: "While the idea of being rated by some obscure online system seems outrageous, the fact is you ARE being judged whether you like it or not. And so you need to educate yourself about this issue so you can make some important decisions of your own."
Redsicker notes writer Seth Godin has a Klout score of zero because he refuses to use Twitter, while a joke account, @common_squirrel has a score of 64. Yet she finds value and food for thought in RETURN ON INFLUENCE, a book by Mark W. Shaefer about the power of social-media. She also provides tips for increasing influence if that's the way a reader chooses to roll.
No doubt my interest in Klout will increase when the weather cools. At the moment, I'm as hot as I've ever wanted to be.
10 comments:
Hmmmm. Interesting post. I've never heard of Klout, Pat, so I'm guessing I score zip. Guess I need to sign up, huh?
I'd heard of it only because Justin scored higher than Obama but I didn't give it relevence at the time.
It's both alarming and humorous. Overall, though, I still hate knowing every keystroke is being gathered by someone I don't know for something I don't want them to know.
Lark, I hesitate to tell you to sign up because who wants to be reduced to a number? I like to read and comment on blogs but I'm a lame Twitterer and am hopeless on FB. What I consider authentic interaction doesn't have the clout of a retweet.
In unrelated news, I snagged a paperback copy of Sharan Newman's DEATH COMES AS EPIPHANY. Woot!
Hi, Sarah. Alarming and humorous is right!
I've sort of paid attention for a while not but this is the second time they've changed their rating criteria. I want to scream. LOL i'm not influential about much - which is the way I like it.
I don't pay much attention to Klout because as Seth Godin illustrates, it's not really accurate measure of your online influence. I just checked mine (for the first time in months) and it's 45. I can't believe I'm that influential about anything, LOL! But it is kinda fun.
Louise, you are influential about important, hard-to-quantify things like well-being, mental health, and relationships, so there!
Hi, Jennette,
Is "Camaro" in your top five influential topics?
"Bars" is in my top seven, and I have to think my avatar is out there having a lot more fun than I am.
Pretty sure Klout has never heard of me, but I may have to go find out.
Oh, Klout's heard of you, Kay. It's been biding its time, waiting for you to step over to the dark side.
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