Social Media

Using Klout to Help Companies Measure Social Media Impact

Businesses are increasingly targeting social media as a means of generating buzz about their products and attracting new customers.  However, it can often be difficult to measure the effects of a social media campaign and how it affects the reach of a company, brand, or product.

Klout offers users the ability to measure their popularity online.

Klout, a start-up that uses algorithms to rank the online influence of each of its users on a scale of 0 to 100.  If you’re Klout Score is 100, it means that you are must likely an international celebrity with an established — and frequently updated — social media presence (think Justin Bieber / someone with tens of thousands of Twitter followers and Facebook likes).  If your Klout score is 0, you might as well not exist online.  Odds are that you’ve never even signed up for Facebook or tweeted.

In a recent Wired article, Seth Stevenson offers an excellent description of Klout:

Much as Google’s search engine attempts to rank the relevance of every web page, Klout—a three-year-old startup based in San Francisco—is on a mission to rank the influence of every person online. Its algorithms comb through social media data: If you have a public account with Twitter, which makes updates available for anyone to read, you have a Klout score, whether you know it or not (unless you actively opt out on Klout’s website). You can supplement that score by letting Klout link to harder-to-access accounts, like those on Google+, Facebook, or LinkedIn. The scores are calculated using variables that can include number of followers, frequency of updates, the Klout scores of your friends and followers, and the number of likes, retweets, and shares that your updates receive. High-scoring Klout users can qualify for Klout Perks, free goodies from companies hoping to garner some influential praise.  (via Wired)

Although it is geared towards individuals, Klout is also a very useful tool for companies that want to take their social media analytics beyond basic metrics such as likes or followers.  Indeed, the Aflac duck users Klout (and he does pretty well).  Klout allows is users to examine their reach (the number of people one influences), amplification (the degree to which one influences others), and network impact (the influence of one’s audience).   Klout also offers feedback on networks that users participate in as well as the various topics on which they are well-regarded.

If you have questions about integrating your social media presence with Klout or about social media in general, please feel free to contact us.

How do you stack up against other Klout users?

Photo: Wired

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