In the past week, I’ve signed up for WordPress, actually blogged here (twice now), linked that to Klout, posted 20 pics via Instagram on Facebook/Twitter/Flickr while doubling followers, tweeted every day, conversed with influencers (both ways) on Twitter, gotten way more than usual hits on a Facebook post, posted in a writing discussion at Ragan.com via Twitter, checked in & tipped like a fiend in multiple states on Foursquare…. and — not that I care, mind you — my Klout score goes down by 5 points. WTF, Klout?
Really?
I’m serious about not caring; I truly believe any kind of “score,” rating or whatever of a person’s online relevance should be based on quality, not quantity. And I’ve definitely gotten some good out of Klout, just from a personal branding angle — it’s motivated me to align my online presences at Flickr, YouTube, etc.
For anyone not familar with this suddenly important metric in the world of new media, Stephanie Rosenbloom of the New York Times writes:
If you have a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account, you are already being judged — or will be soon. Companies with names like Klout, PeerIndex and Twitter Grader are in the process of scoring millions, eventually billions, of people on their level of influence — or in the lingo, rating “influencers.” Yet the companies are not simply looking at the number of followers or friends you’ve amassed. Rather, they are beginning to measure influence in more nuanced ways, and posting their judgments — in the form of a score — online.
So I have to wonder what they’re factoring in over there when my engagement and sharing have actually been higher this whole week. Again, not that any of this matters whatsoever. Oh, and please be sure to like/ retweet/ reblog/ photograph/ screenprint/ yadda, yadda.
Update, 10/27: Apparently I’m influential to someone over at Klout, because since this post they have revamped scoring. The image of my monitor included here on this day now no longer even looks like how it did in the picture. Interesting. Klout now rewrites history.
Update, 11/16: The plot thickens! If you’re concerned about privacy, you’ll be very interested to read, “Klout Updates Privacy Features. Is it Enough?“ by Tonia Ries over at The Realtime Report.
What do you think? Are you on Klout? Have you ever even heard of it? Or do you know your Klout score by heart and check it regularly/daily/hourly? Let us hear from you in the comments…
Related articles
- What Your Klout Score Really Means (Wired.com)
- Klout Scores, Edublog Awards and Other Things That Don’t Matter (coopcatalyst.wordpress.com)
- Klout CEO “We Messed Up On This One and Are Deeply Sorry” (blogworld.com)
- Klout’s CEO issues an apology for creating profiles of minors (thenextweb.com)
- Up for a Game of Klout? (jeffturner.info)
- My Life Without Klout (socialmouths.com)
- What Klout Really Measures (BrandSavant.com)
- What is Klout’s Klout Score? (DIYBlogger.net)
Great post, Richard. I’ve heard so many stories and bizarre data points like this; they are really losing credibility among many people.