A Brief Overview of Klout, and Why you Need it

Clout n. pull; strong influence; muscle, especially political power: a wealthy campaign contributor with clout at city hall.

Do you have clout? Even if you think you don’t have clout, Klout says everyone has Klout, and it’s true! You know what clout is, but you may not know what Klout is. If you use Twitter, you’re likely to have seen Klout scores since most Twitter applications display a person’s Klout score. But what is it and why should you care?

Klout claims to be the “standard of influence”. But what does that mean? Before answering that, let’s back up about 15 years. The Internet became this big deal because of the web browser. As quality web sites emerged beyond the well known branded names, the Internet became known as the great equalizer. You can now look at a professionally designed website and have no idea if a team of dozens of people in a Manhattan loft, or one guy sitting on a folding chair in his mom’s basement, created the website. The Internet has also given us all the ability to be worldwide publishers without spending one minute talking to a publishing company.

Enter 2006; Twitter launches. Arguably, Twitter wasn’t too much more than its predecessor the chat room; empty blather about sex and the weather and where the next party was. Albeit worthwhile to some, that type of “news” is mostly worthless banter for the masses. But then a few smart marketing peeps realized that they could take advantage of the craze of Facebook user’s obsession with being “Liked”. Suddenly thousands of people start using Twitter to rack up “Followers” to brag, “Hey, look at me! If 100,000 people care what I have to say, I must be some big deal!” The problem, 100,000 people following you doesn’t mean they’re actually listening to you, or care a fool’s drivel about you.

Enter 2009; Joe Fernandez and Binh Tran launch Klout. Klout is simply an attempt to help social media users see through the smoke clouds of hype marketing. As the playground was leveled by the Internet, many wannabe experts arose essentially selling snake oil. It’s easy to tout being an expert and brag about having 100,000 people following you, or even a million people visiting your website. But how can one tell if those 100,000 people are merely 100,000 drones following you because you follow them back? Just as with old link exchange programs, mutual agreements don’t necessarily mean you have worthwhile content to be proud of.

Klout attempts to negate the level playing field, but in a good way. If you provide great advice, a great product, a great service, or you’re just plain all-round great, the best people to judge that are the people that listen to you. The more people you have listening to you and are actually talking to you in return, and most importantly, are telling their own friends about you, the better chance there is that maybe you actually are a big deal. If you’re a big deal, in whatever deal you’re big in, people who don’t know you or you don’t know should take notice. That’s Klout in a nut shell.

Of course, Klout isn’t perfect. But it doesn’t claim to be either, at least not yet. Klout is still in “beta”, so for now, the service is take it or leave it and don’t complain if you don’t like it; it’s free. But it’s hard to ignore. Many Twitter apps display your Klout score. If you have a high Klout score, that’s a good thing. If it’s not, however, you may be losing credibility from those that don’t know you, even if the ones that do know you would disagree.

This is exactly why it’s important to know your Klout score. This is also why it’s equally important to monitor your Klout score, understand your Klout score, and do what you reasonably can to raise your Klout score, without making it your ultimate end-all of social media.

So how can you raise your Klout score? More on that in a future post 😉 Can’t wait for the next update? Feel free to send me an email and I’ll tell you all about it!. You can also follow me via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

Did I help you learn more about Klout? Visit my profile and give me some love by giving away +K, who knows, you probably already have more Klout than I do!

I know you have your own opinions regarding the importance of Klout. Let me know what you’re thinking!