We live in a world where numbers are used to determine different factors that represent our lives. There are scores to determine your creditworthiness, the number of points achieved in a sporting event, your knowledge of U.S. history, and scores that even determine how stressed you are. Why not create a score that determines your measure of influence in social media? That numeric score is brought to you by Klout, “the standard for influence”.
Klout measures the size of users’ networks on social media, and uses that variable to correspond with the engagement of the content that those users post. Klout uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, and Wikipedia to determine one’s Klout Score. The convenient thing about this is that a user gets to choose which social media platform they would like to contribute to their Klout Score. Naturally, a user would think to connect all of their social media accounts to Klout. However, your Klout score is based on the content you post and the engagement with your networks. Don’t let a few tweets that have not been favorited, retweeted, or replied to affect your score. The more engagement you receive, the higher your score will be, so it is very important to be strategic about the social media platforms that you choose.
Now, your Klout Score is not solely based on the number of interactions you have. Klout uses a variety of factors to determine the structure of your engagement. For example, 200 likes from 20 different Facebook posts will contribute more to your Klout Score than receiving 200 likes from 2,000 posts. Klout even pays attention to social media invalidities that could possibly affect your Klout Score, such as spam and fake followers. A perk of using Klout: the perks! Klout users can receive awards based on their influence. They can receive discounts, prizes, and access to products in their area. That is definitely an incentive to get your Klout Score up.
What is considered to be a high Klout Score or a low Klout Score? Who knows! Unfortunately, Klout does not provide a definitive range that determines whether your Klout Score is good or bad. All we know is that the Klout Score is a numeric value between 1 and 100, 100 being the most influential. At least we do know that if your Klout score is at 50, you are halfway to influential greatness! The best way to utilize your Klout Score is when you notice that it is decreasing. That is when you want to work on better content for your networks, and make sure you have solid engagement. This is especially convenient for businesses because it shows them what content is relating to their target audiences the most. Klout is what you make it. How influential are you?
