Klout, the shiny item in the shop window

Published October 5th, 2011 in Social media
Tagged as , , , , , ,

Klout in shop window

Image courtesy of of Steve Greaves.

This blog post was sparked by a recent Yammer conversation as well as great blog posts such as Catching the Klout and  Social Media Influence vs Online Reputation.

People these days seems to be divided in two camps when it comes to Klout and other social influence measurement scores. One camp is all for it; the other all against it. The “all against it” camp features a higher number of people whose opinion on social media I respect and normally listen to.

I think everybody is getting too hooked up on whether Klout is valuable or not rather than what it’s purpose is. Klout score is not the goal; it is not even the journey. Klout is a small sparkly sign at the side of the road of the user journey gently nudging the user in a direction, but not pushing powerful enough to change the direction of the user significantly on its own.

Klout is not near enough precise to be a critical decision tool. One of the issues is that it tells me, as a user, how influential a person is in general, but it doesn’t tell me how influential that person is to me or the specific topics I care about. This is amplified by the fact that if I want to give a person +K I wouldn’t be able to freely choose on what topic but have to choose from a short list of predefined topics.

But does that mean Klout has no value at all? No. Remember only a Sith deals in absolutes. That’s the path to the dark side and not enlightenment.

There are nuances of usefulness. While Klout should never be mission critical in decisions for the reasons above, it can still act as social proof, no matter how vague. It gives people some weak indication on a person’s influence for them to then make their own judgement based on futher research, content, engagement, etc.

Klout is the pretty item in the shop window luring you into the shop. If the shop then does not deliver then you are free to leave, but the item in the window has served its purpose as soon as you step through the door.

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  • http://osakabentures.com/english-2/saulfleischman/ Saul Fleischman

    What a perfect image for this article, Robert!

    I must tell you that I am neither for nor against, but am unwilling to play to feed the Klout core sensors.  I am not going to engage influencers with high Klout scores just to nudge them to mention me.  (People do this. Oh, how they do this!)

    You know what? With all the Triberr people tweeting my blog posts, I
    went from 57 to 70 Klout in a couple months.  To keep it there required
    overdoing it on gratituitous engagement of high-Klout people, and that
    is something I will not do.  As of this writing I am down to 67 – and
    falling.  I’ll live with it.  Will you respect me any less?

    On my own site, I just wrote about Klout, and in particular, posed these questions:
    1. We see Klout Perks, know they will increase in number and also, hopefully, in the
    nations where we can actually use them, but, what should we even be hoping to really gain from building a high Klout score?

    2. Will Klout data soon be mined by marketers, perhaps…? How might that actually hurt us…?

    http://osakabentures.com/2011/10/klout-questions-for-you/

  • http://www.fransgaard.com/ Fransgaard

    On that image, I tried to find an istock that suited but there was none then I had the idea of looking through istock and I found Steve’s lovely photo that just fit perfectly.

    I agree. Playing to Klout is wasting time that may or may not return on time invested. But not doing so doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve a purpose.

  • http://bit51.com Chris Wiegman

    Good analogies. Klout, and personal grading in general, is an interesting topic but should never be the goal.

  • http://bit51.com Chris Wiegman

    Good analogies. Klout, and personal grading in general, is an interesting topic but should never be the goal.

  • http://bit51.com Chris Wiegman

    Good analogies. Klout, and personal grading in general, is an interesting topic but should never be the goal.

  • http://twitter.com/engagetoday Rob Falla

    Cheers for this article Robert. I have been looking at Klout recently and was not all that impressed. It seems to be totally meaningless but still fun. Kind of like blowing bubbles. I take your point about the pretty item in the shop window but do wonder if there is a saturation point with these shiny things.

  • http://www.fransgaard.com/ Fransgaard

    true

  • http://www.fransgaard.com/ Fransgaard

    I think you hit a nerve there. There are lots of functions online that is starting to feel saturated. Why do we need another facebook (google+)? Why is the same item being tweeted by multiple people again and again? 

    I think we will see a push-back soon with closed social networks.

  • Sarah Fox

    Do you agree that Klout should be used as a segmentation tool when brands are looking for influential bloggers to invite to certain events i.e. you need a Klout of over 50 to come to our pre-launch VIP event?

  • http://www.fransgaard.com/ Fransgaard

    Yes, I do think it should be one of the tools. BUT automated tools should never be the sole decision maker. Because they don’t look at the person’s real-life “Klout” or real life influence. 

    The podcast “6 Pixels of Separation” has more than once brought up the weird dilemma that people who appear to be influential in the social sphere on a given topic often have little real life experience to back it up (because those who do, don’t have time to tweet as much).

    So while a blogger may not have high Klout score, their real life success may make them a much more valuable advocate.