Like many of us, I’ve been looking at data from my own activities and the activities of others to learn more about Klout and their algorithms (If you’re unfamiliar with Klout, be sure to read my article A Brief Overview of Klout, and Why you Need it). Why? Not to game the system, but to know better when the system’s getting gamed. I also didn’t like my score of 10 thirty days ago. I now have a 42, and I know how I did it, and pretty much know how to get it to 60. Besides, since I claim to know social media marketing and offer it as one of the services I provide from my business, Bowser Multimedia Productions, I better be able to prove I know what I’m talking about.
One tweet to twitter users with Klout scores over 60 affect a traffic increase of over 1300%
I’m still doing some testing and will reveal more soon, but I wanted to share this little tidbit of my results from the last 48 hours of number crunching and market testing.
I wrote my previously mentioned article, A Brief Overview of Klout, and Why you Need it a couple days ago. Afterwards, to get some feedback on it, I made a list of my followers who had Klout scores of at least 60. I made another list comprising of followers who had a Klout score of less than 30. I was hoping that those 60+’rs would be happy to critique, while those <30’s would be happy to learn why Klout is an important indication of how well they’re being listened to, or not listened to.
I first sent the above URL to my 60+ team: KloutTeam60. At the time, I had 48 people in this list and sent the URL to all 48. Within 24 hours, my blog was viewed 118 times, my tweet to them was retweeted or mentioned 4 times, and my post was replied to once (from that list). (Thank you @michaelsb, @MomItForward, @Inspirationf, @traveldudes, and @michaeldean0116 for the love!) Not huge results, but for a guy who just started using Twitter a couple weeks ago, I’m happy with the traffic I generated and even more happy with the new relationships I’ve built. I received roughly 10% feedback, with traffic equaling almost 250% (I told 48 people about my article, yet the article was visited 118 times). Witness the power of Twitter; people can “hear” you even though you’re not directly talking to them (thank you @BlankMustDie and @CruiseBuzz!), along with the benefit of friends telling friends, who tell their friends (when you say something worth retelling).
The next day I tested out the folks with less than 30 Klout. I sent the same URL to 500 followers. I specifically did this with my own followers so that I could have as valid of a control group as possible, along with having a greatly diverse sampling. Have any guesses of the data this time around? Did my blog go viral?
Not even close.
My blog got 10 times the exposure, yet was only viewed 57 times within the 24 hours after sending the last tweet to my under 30 group. I received one retweet (thank you @benrichclothing!), no comments, no other mentions. Think about that. I sent a request to read my blog to 10 times the people, 500 instead of 48, but I got half the traffic.
One tweet gets 10 times the exposure, yet only half the traffic, when sent to twitter users with Klout scores below 30
One error in my data may lie within my calls to action; I did not use the same pitch for every person. I didn’t have a “control” pitch. My tweet to my 60+ followers was more of a request, while my tweet to my under 30 followers was more of a, “hey, check this out, you need to read this” type of message. I feel if I hadn’t changed my pitch, I believe more erroneous data would have been introduced by my tweets becoming redundant, and therefore less effective, as the test wore on. However, with the size of the sampling, I still think the difference in traffic and retweets is significant, and quite illuminating. Next time, however, I’ll specifically test the difference between “asking” versus “announcing”. Knowing a little bit about marketing, I’m sure the difference will be a noticeable. How much of a difference will be interesting to see.
Reiterating my results, my second group of followers who I tweeted to had half the Klout (30 vs 60), my tweet had 10 times the exposure (500 vs 48), yet my blog only received half the views (57 vs 118). One of my followers (btw who has over 10,000 followers, yet only has a Klout of 17) responded to my request with “I think websites like that are totally useless and their algorithms totally biased and ineffective”.
Since a test sampling of 30 begins to show reliable trends, I now know why Klout scores are biased, if indeed they are.
When we market out products and services, especially when those services provide a valuable benefit, we’re no different than the largest corporation in the world; we need help promoting our brands. That’s why we use Twitter, that’s why we use social media. That’s why we use social marketing. We don’t need followers who blow us off. A high amount of followers just for the sake of having a high number of followers does nothing for you.
People having higher Klout scores than others can say one thing for certain; they have less people blowing them off and more people spreading the word and furthering their causes.
If Klout is useless, it’s the exact kind of uselessness I need.
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to Like my Facebook page, as I’ll be revealing exactly how you can raise your Klout score, and keep it there; a Facebook exclusive for my Facebook friends. And yes, it will be free information 😉
What do you think? Do you have your own Klout story to tell? Still convinced Klout scores are completely erroneous and irrelevant? See additional errors in my data I missed? Would love to hear your replies!
5 Responses to Proof in the Power of Klout