Thursday, September 15, 2011

What Is Klout All About?

I often wonder what Klout really is all about... So to clear up some confusion, and to get some serious questions answered, I turned to my friend Natalie - author of Mommy of a Monster and Twins.



If you are a social media nerd fan like I am, then you probably have heard of Klout. If you regularly use Facebook, Twitter, or a slew of other social media sites, you might want to check out Klout.com. Klout measures your overall online influence. It ranges from 1 to 100, and the higher your score, the wider and stronger influence you have - you have the "klout" to drive people to action.

What does "action" mean? Well action can be a reply, a retweet, a comment, or a click. For example: If you tweet a post that somebody has on their blog and say "Hey check this out, it's really a cool post!", the higher your Klout score, the higher the chances that people will actually click on that link.



You might be wondering how your Klout score is measured. Well first, you link up to up to 10 social media sites when you sign up for Klout. The more you link up to that you are active daily on, the higher your score will be. Your Klout score is actually measured based on three factors: True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Influence.



True Reach: This simply means the size of your engaged audience – the people that actually pay attention when you say something and react to your message.



Amplification Probability: The likelihood that people will respond to your messages by retweeting, @messaging you back, liking, or commenting.



Network Influence: The level of engagement that you get from other influencers.

Now those are the super simple definitions, but if you are interested in learning more about these things, you can check out my post What Is Klout?

Why should you care about all of this? Klout is an important tool if you are considering working with brands. BlogHer and Ketchum PR released a study this year showing that bloggers’ voices and opinions have replaced celebrity endorsements as reliable sources!

Now once you get into Klout, you'll need to know about a couple of other things like Klout Perks and Klout +K.

Klout Perks

When we use social media, we all have certain things we talk about a lot. I tweet a lot about parenting, wine, and cooking. And you probably notice that certain things you talk about get a lot of attention from your audience, and that results in retweets, @ replies, conversation, etc.

Klout keeps an eye on influencers - people that can and do generate a lot of “talk.” Klout believes that your influence should be rewarded, so they give out no-strings-attached Klout Perks. When Klout sees that you are an influencer about a specific topic that a brand is trying to promote, they may reach out to you hoping that you will try out the product or service and then "talk" about it via social media. You'll receive a tweet or email, and then you will be directed to a page to fill out information in order to get the perk. If you are signed up with Klout, you're eligible for perks.

I tweet about wine a lot, and Klout suggests that if I talk about it in an interesting or authoritative way that makes people want to respond or interact, I would likely be a top consideration for a wine-related Perk because I’d be a good fit. And guess what? I've received free wine (as well as other perks) through Klout!

Once you get the perk, Klout has no expectations. Of course, the hope is that you will help spread the word, but if you read Klout's Influencers Code of Ethics, you'll see you are under no obligation to do anything other than enjoy the perk.

Klout +K

You might see a tweet saying “I just gave @xxxx a +K about (whatever) on @klout” and then a link to the +K.

It would look like this: (From @AKludgyMom): I just gave @mommyofamonster +K about klout on @klout http://t.co/uZPBXUN

What is this all about? All +K is is a way to allows users to vouch for their peers’ influence in topics. For example, if my friend gave me great blogging advice (or in the case above, I gave AKludgyMom great Klout advice), I might want to give them +K on blogging.

In a nutshell: it's a way for you to give your friends and influencers a shout out for a job well done.

To learn how to give out +K to your friends, you can read my post titled What is +K and How Does It Work?

And while I'm no Klout expert (just a huge fan) if you have any questions you have about Klout, feel free to ask me in the comment section, or tweet me (@mommyofamonster) and I'd be happy to answer them!

Thanks for having me here Kristin!

***********

Natalie is a SAHM of three children: her 4-year-old son and 2-year-old twin girls. She writes Mommy of a Monster and Twins, which is all about the day-to-day chaos that comes with chasing three kids in three different directions, usually all at the same time. In her free time, which she rarely has anymore, she reads, writes, cooks, gardens, drinks wine, and works as a social media consultant.


10 comments:

Amanda @ It's Blogworthy said...

I love Klout. It's fun and I got a Macys gift card. Although I have to say, if somebody has some random klout topic, I always give it to them (like one friend had Unicorns!) Great post.

Unknown said...

LOVE Klout.. and I love the perks..

Kristy @Loveandblasphemy said...

Thanks for the info, I've been wondering about that! Woot, woot! Free wine?!

Anonymous said...

Being addicted to Klout ever since I asked Alison @MamaWantsThis about it. I'm still waiting for my robot perk though.

Anonymous said...

I have Unicorns as a topic!

To add to your post, they just added Topic pages so you can see who the topic influencers for each topic are and you can also see who has received the most +K in that topic.

Andrea said...

It's interesting to me. But sometimes I want to give +K and just don't have enough people I'm ready to hit as they either don't have topics, or like me, have two for ages. I finally got a third, so that was kind of cool. ;)

Mimi N said...

I love Klout. And there can be some wild and ridiculous topics. I started off with Muppets. Fun for me. =) I enjoy giving +k daily, too. Ohhh, Tweeting & Klouting go hand in hand. =)

~Mimi

Paulette said...

I love how you take something that seems over whelming and confusing and make it so that everyone can understand it! Great Job!

I love Klout! I love that most of my topics are things I actually know about/discuss but some are strange, like infections? Had to shake my head on that one.

~Paulette~

Hopes@Staying Afloat! said...

I'm new to blogging, and Twitter, and Klout. But I love them all so far.

But I have yet to figure out why I am influential about cheerleading since I've never been a cheerleader a day in my life. All the same, I'll take it! Love is love right?

Donna said...

Thank you for explaining this so thoroughly! I understood the basics, but didn't fully "get it". Off to read your other post about +k now. Thanks!

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