A continuation of my interview with Megan Berry, Director of Marketing from Klout and my personal opinions on Klouts usability as a tool for businesses.
Klout Improvements Can Cause Sense of Instability & Trust Issues
Klout’s other problem in 2010 was the inability to produce an accurate score that accurately measured your social graph. However, at the end of 2010, Klout changed their algorithm to update every day, producing what is hoped to be a more accurate score. Over the past six months, I’ve seen numerous fluctuations in my score that was caused by Klout continually adjusting their measurement algorithm to be more accurate. The downside to them making this improvement is that it causes brands to be cautious in trusting who is influential in their networks. For example, @Bigjaysullivan [seen above] saw his Klout score increase by 14 points in 3 days [see below]
- Not sure why it say’s “Jack Sullivan”, but here is the URL for @bigjaysullivan’s Klout
If I’m a brand, I ask the following: “How can I trust an algorithm that credits spammers with high influence ratings?”
However, as Megan points out, “in social media, things really do change quite quickly” as Taco Bell found out recently. Although Klout is making improvements to their algorithm to create a stable measure that people can rely on, these improvements can cause fluctuations. Having said that, it’s important to note that although the evolution of the algorithm can cause occasional changes to your Klout score, the algorithm is quite stable on a day-to-day basis. After Klout is able to make the necessary improvements to the accuracy of their algorithmic measurement, businesses can trust the stability of their influencers score when it comes to building social media users into their campaigns. [Note] A recent improvement in the Klout algorithm marked the first time Klout has indicated that fluctuation in your analysis. (see below)
Additionally, the latest news of Google’s Social Search also indicates (in my opinion) the possibility of Klout scores being integrated with Google search results as a way of defining the importance, relevance, and influence of a particular search result. In fact, Google is already starting to play around with integrating social influence into their search results. Recently SEOmoz started to rank for “Beginner’s Guide” keyword after just one tweet (thanks to @Thattallguy for this article). If this continues to grow, it will be interesting to see if Google adopts Klout as a social influence standard or if they continue to build that into their search engine. Either way, becoming socially engaged in a positive and ethical way will become even more important for brands sooner rather than later.
Klout Perks
During 2010, we saw Klout explore with some major brands to offer “perks” to influential people in the target market of a specific brand. The trials were met with some amazing gratitude, skepticism, and valid criticism. In the summer, Klout and Virgin America teamed up to provide online influences a “golden ticket” to San Francisco.
One of the lucky winners from Toronto, Breanna Hughes, wrote a valid post that provided some critical feedback for Klout to learn from. It’s important to remember that not everything is a home run on the first try! Several other “perk” campaigns were run during the fall including one with the TNT TV show “Southlands” where influencers got first access to the season premiere along with a Southand jacket, a Walt Disney Pictures promotion that gave away free flights and Tangled movie tickets to leading social influencers. As a sports fan, one of my favourites was when Klout and the Sacramento Kings teamed up to provide social influenced fans a once in a lifetime opportunity to sit in box seats, engage in activities throughout the game, and pose for photos with Kings players.
Klout Predictions And Ideas
Megan explained to me “one of our [Klout] goals for 2011 is to figure out how small and medium-sized businesses can leverage Klout Perks.” For instance, “if you’re a wine shop in San Francisco, you want to be able to reach out to wine influencers in San Francisco, ‘Hey stop by and get some free wine on this day’”. Now although I think Megan and Klout have interesting ideas in how they approach “influencers”, I believe they are balancing a fine line between developing real honest and authentic trustworthy relationships between brands and customers that don’t create unethical or false relationships between brands and customers.
Michaelis Wine & Spirit, San Francisco
As a digital strategist that is interested in finding more effective ways to use Klout as a measurement for online influence and people whom I should connect with, I’d love to see some additional Hootsuite integration. For instance, Hootsuite and Klout should work together to build further category filtration into the dashboard management tool that allows me to create individual columns for:
- Creators
- Activists
- Celebrities
- Thought leaders
- Curators
- Broadcasters
- Syndicators
- Feeders
- Taste Makers
- Pundits
- Dabblers
- Conversationalists
- Observers
- Explorers
- Socializers
- Networkers
This would allow brands to target specific people in specific categories relevant to their business needs. Brands could also further break down each category by filtering through Klout scores. For instance, it would be very easy to target thought leaders with a Klout score over 70.
As interesting and revolutionary a tool like Klout is, it also has a ways to go before it can become a truly effective tool. Having said that, it’s also up to us as digital marketing professionals to figure out an efficient use for the tool. With a lot of discussion around group buying and other innovative sales promotion ideas, I think we still need time to evaluate if giving bloggers and online influencers incentives or free gifts will either produce an increase in sales or a decrease in brand image.
Either way, Klout has lots of potential, but also faces lots of questions including expanding its economies of scale while it competes in very dynamic and trendy web 2.0 marketplaces.
