Klout is a tool that measures personal Influence. I am not going to go into a whole lot more detail because my pal Jennifer James wrote an excellent post on that topic and I couldn’t do it as well. There are two other tools in this space as well: Kred (great post about it from Mashable) and Peer Index (great post about it from Digital Business UK) which came along a little later than Klout.
While not as prolific as Klout, Kred’s approach to showing or explaining measurement is a bit more open than Klout. For example, on Kred you are able to see how your actions contribute to your score. However, the problem with Kred is that you only connect to two social networks at this time: Twitter and Facebook, whereas there are twelve platforms with seven additional ones to be added in the near future that Klout connects to. So Klout measures your influence on all your presences not just two.
There are so many great posts on all these measurement tools (like the ones linked above) that I would waste my time trying to do better here. This post is about my own personal Klout (and Kred) experiment.
While I was semi-living in Las Vegas in April (a joke, but spending two weeks there made me feel like it) a friend told me about a great Wired article about Klout in which companies like hotels were granting upgrades based on Klout scores.
I had definitely seen that some companies looking to hire in the social or digital marketing space sometimes had minimum scores requirements, but I had not heard about hotels doing upgrades based on these scores. As a traveler, that piqued my interest! Funnily enough I was sitting in the very hotel (The Palms) mentioned in the Wired article while having that initial conversation with my friend in Vegas!
In the article the reporter mentioned experimenting with Klout to see if he could increase his score. Based on advice from someone at Klout he started tweeting more consistently, selecting specific topics and tweeting at people with higher Klout scores. He went from a score of 31 to 46 during the period of his experiment (which I think lasted several weeks).
After reading the article I decided to try my own experiment. I already tweet about things that are of interest to me: travel, food, social media and all things French, no change needed there.
In terms of “tweeting at people” with higher Klout scores [on purpose] that is just not something that I am prepared to do [intentionally]. I tweet with people to have conversations and share info, not to gain [or game] influence.
This especially not going to happen with me being an introvert and all! So that was a no go.
The one thing I could control, change and monitor was the frequency of my tweets.
I have said many times that I read over 400 blogs a week. Well, duh. There was a light bulb moment.
I don’t comment on every one, but the least I could do is retweet a chuck of them!
It helps me and it helps others. So I developed a spreadsheet (I am Type-A by the way if you couldn’t guess) with seven days on it and time slots every 30 minutes between 6 am and 10 pm. Then as I did my normal blog reading I used Hootsuite to schedule tweets for a selection of the posts I read. (I still also adhoc tweet as well.)
My Retweet Spreadsheet
This is another reason why I wrote “don’t make me think to retweet” because I was getting frustrated with how much work can sometimes be involved with a simple retweet!
I started the experiment on April 28. My Klout score at the time was 48. My Kred score was 738/6.
Today my Klout score is 50 (was 49 until this past Wednesday). And my Kred score is 743/7. As you can see, despite only having two networks (or maybe because it is only two networks) I made larger strides on Kred than Klout.
It was an experiment. I am glad I did it because it made me a better tweeter in terms of promoting all the great posts that other people write and that makes me happy.
Bottom line, that is really what is important, goodwill to others.
That is what influences me.
What about you? What do you think about Klout (or Kred)?
EPILOGUE: Late yesterday I logged into Klout (I try to log in every day to award people +K’s) and my score jumped up to 57! I think it’s a mistake (ssshh, don’t tell Kout) because I was logged in on Friday with a 50! They must have sensed my post…because now the conclusion I drew about the impact of my experiment may not be as solid…
I’m going to start taking a page out of your book and using HootSuite and setting a RT schedule–you are always so generous with your Tweets! I’ve just had a really bad time getting a consistent Twitter program to work–every one I’ve downloaded (mainly Tweetdeck) on my various computers eventually starts giving me a constant API error so in the end I wind up doing all my Twittering on Twitter.com (lame, I know) or my phone, which makes it really hard to RT, plus you can’t set a schedule.
My frustration w/ Klout is that your Facebook connection has to be your personal account not a Page. I’m trying to build my visibility w/ my new venture, The Diva of Dating, but Klout only looks at my Twitter feed! Might have to look at Kred.
Mild chuckle at the spreadsheet, but not a bad idea.
I am in complete agreement about the good will aspect of this. It’s frustrating to get tweets that are pure boring self-promotion. I try to only retweet what inspires me–or someone I want to promote for whatever reason. But, I have to admit I do look at their numbers!
@Walker, so happy to hear from you, you’ve been missing from my reader! Did I miss an update that you moved blogs? I agree with the fact that you can’t add pages, I think that will have to be an update on their roadmap because it plays into a person’s overall online presence.
@Krisin, I’ve tried several tools as well, always come back to Hootsuite, I really like it a lot. I use it for both personal and professional and it just works for me. App version too. They ever recently added Instagram, so I can keep up and like photos from there too. It is just a really great tool and that is what makes it convenient to do the tweeting and promotion of others with retweets, otherwise, I agree it would not be possible, it is too much work otherwise and is random and inefficient. I use Hootsuite on my PC at work, Macbook and iMac at home (and from time to time my phone, I am not big on tweeting from my phone, unless it is just a simple retweet) – bottomline is it has worked for me over the last year and I highly recommend it.
Andi,
No…just not posting on Deliriously Divine much. Working on getting The Diva going and doing some on A Woman’s Page. I do stop in occasionally but don’t comment too often. Looking forward to the Social Media Sundays feature.
hootsuite ftw!
And you source great content, so people act on it. This is great information. I should really be more organized. I love Klout. Thanks for the info on Kred and Peer Index. I’m behind on both.
@Jen, Hooutsuite has been a really great tool for keeping me organized. I have tried others, but always go back to this one.
thanks for the great explanation and info about klout.
I’ve heard of this site but never used it, I had no idea this is what it was all about. Thanks for the post!
I like that you experimented with klout. I have come to realize alot with klout and have tried to help others with it. My klout score is now up to 62. I love the perks associated with klout, don’t you?
I don’t completely understand Klout or Kred, but I do have a Klout account. My scores 46. I never realized how beneficial s high Klout score could be. Thanks for sharing.
@Amber, that is not a bad score at all, especially is you aren’t trying!
I still don’t really understand Klout.
I haven’t checked my Klout score in months. My husband though has managed to sign up to do a test drive of a car. It is scheduled for September, I think. I do love the idea of “goodwill to others”, so I will have to take another look.
Andi, great post and thanks for including Kred – I like that you mention our open approach to influence – we post a full explanation of how we score at http://lc.tl/kr
If you need any more information on Kred, please feel free to reach out to me directly via http://lc.tl/c
Kind Regards,
Andrew Grill
CEO, Kred
@andrewgrill
@Andrew, thanks so much for stopping by and I greatly appreciate you reaching out to get a better understanding of your tool as well as your company’s efforts in making it as transparent as possible. There are actually a few things I am fuzzy on, but I am going to try to hit up Mr. Linton who will seeing this afternoon professionally
If I run out of time to ask my questions, I’ll definitely reach out to you. Thanks!
I’ve only recently heard of Klout so I will have to check out those other pages you mentioned. I really enjoy the way you describe your life and experiences. Congrats on the Klout score!
Thanks for giving more information on Klout. I was not sure what it was all about. I will give it another look!