OMG the “Twitterverse” has been abuzz with the recent changes that “Klout” has made to their algorithms, the social media world is on fire!
It’s amazing to me how many “Social Media Experts” who previously touted “Klout” as “The Social Media influence tool” to use, are now willing to jump ship and look for some “Kred”ential’s” (not that Kred doesn’t seem to be on top of their game or anything). But frankly I just don’t get it! If you ask me it’s quite laughable at the amount of bruised Klout ego’s out there! I mean really a few short weeks ago many of the so called “Social Media Experts”, (you know who they are!) couldn’t say enough good things about “Klout” and “Klout Perks”! If these so called “Social Media Experts”, were truly on top of their game there would have been little to no changes in their scores when the “Klout Analyst’s”, finally figured out what truly makes up Social Influence.
To me “Klout” was initially a simple measurement of your Twitter presence; however they saw an opportunity to turn the service into a viable business by adding on the measurement of facebook reach and influence, for businesses. As we have entered Social Media 3.0, the expectation is that people now have a way to equate return of engagement to return on investment.
Overtime and with the help of certain “Brands”, Klout now has a growing structure for which to begin measuring social influence. This is important in that so many of our “Social Media Experts”, previously were gaming “Klout” by this I mean they were simply obtaining followers and dousing then with information, not actually engaging them. So here we are today with tons of “Social Media Experts”, with bruised egos because they have been found out and must now start re-building their Social Influence. Perhaps this time they will be better at creatively engaging and communicating with at least 10% of those 9,999 followers on a weekly basis!
Since influence is relative why all the so called “Social Media Experts” are upset that their “Rock star” scores have dropped from 80 to 46? Why are they not upset with the fact that it is took “Klout” so long to understand what Social Influence truly consists of?
My issues with “Klout” are not that they’ve changed the algorithms to what they actually should have been measuring but that they do not address the broken pieces of the system! Such as, how does one become influential of bars after one Facebook post and maybe three tweets, on the subject?! And not be influential in QR codes and they sit on a weekly chat regarding that subject and are constantly retweeted and even quoted in various blogs; on the matter! Not to mention, there aren’t any instructions on how to give +K to an influencer on a subject we feel they are an influencer of? These are the issues we want answers to!
I digress; the good folks at “Klout” were not able to respond back to me in a timely fashion so I had to push forward without a response from them. And while my relationship with “Klout” has been bittersweet I would love to see them re-brand and move forward; as I have invested so much time building my “Social Influence” and “Klout”. However with these unanswered questions I find myself wanting to join in on the #OccupyKlout movement or my favorite “Who needs “Klout” when they have Social Media “Kred”!
For more information on Social Media “Kred” go to www.kred.ly
To read more about measuring your Social Media Influence read this great article on "Social Media Examiner" by Phil Mershon, "6 Ways to Measure Your Social Media Results".
I think your Angry Bird comic is so perfect for this post!
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