• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

  • About Me
  • Marketing
  • Librarianship
  • Random Musings
  • Contact Me

Why My Judgment is Un-Klouted

September 26, 2010 by Margie Clayman 14 Comments

I was asked today if I have checked my Klout score. I have seen a lot about Klout…it’s essentially a way to measure your influence (there’s that word again). Klout defines its metrics this way:

We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action — “action” might be defined as a reply, a retweet or clicking on a link.

So, if you have a lot of people clicking on links and retweeting you, your Klout score goes up. Naturally, attaining a high Klout score will be easier, statistically, for someone with 50,000 followers than a person with 100 followers. 1% of 50,000 will always be bigger than 1% of 100, I don’t care what kind of fuzzy math you’re doing.

That’s not why I have no interest in my Klout score, however.

Put simply, I haven’t checked my Klout ranking for 2 reasons.

1. I don’t need to

2. I don’t care

Let’s explore both of these in a bit of detail.

I don’t need to know what my Klout score is

So, first of all, I have my own ways of measuring clicks. I know how many people are coming to my blog. I know how many people (roughly) are clicking on my bit.ly links. I know how many people are retweeting me. Even if I cared deeply about my Klout score, the plain and simple numbers that I look at to measure what I’m doing tell me that in terms of clicks and Retweets, I am not “influential.” Boo hoo. Don’t cry too hard for me. I’ll survive somehow.

Here’s the thing. For me, clout (spelled correctly and without a .com after it) in Social Media translates to people you’ve helped somehow. Do you know how you measure that? People kindly tell you that you helped them. Yep. Communication on Social Media sites. Wacky, right? Klout doesn’t really measure “influence” in this way, but I think all measures of influence should be based on “thank you” and any and all translations. A lot of the people who have high Klout scores would also probably rank pretty highly on the “thank you” scale. Others would fall off pretty darned quickly, though. For example, the people who spend a lot of time saying, “Please RT” or “OMG CLICK!”. They might have a great Klout score, but not a lot of the kind of clout that I admire.

I don’t care about my Klout score

Numbers in Social Media, for me, have just become moments of pause. I marked when I finally got my 100th follower. I noted progress when I grew my community to 500 followers. I paused again when I reached 1,000 followers. But I have not changed a gull darn thing about how I am blogging or how I am Tweeting. At this point, my game in Social Media is about continuing to learn all I can and then when I’m not doing that, bringing other folks up to speed who might be struggling in the same way I was six months ago. That’s it. I don’t get retweeted a whole lot because generally, I don’t talk in sound bytes. I talk in words that I string together into 140-character mini sentences. Normally, those are written in response to something someone has said to me. I just talk to people. There isn’t anything innately retweetable about “Hey, are you feeling better?” I don’t care. I just don’t. I like talking to the people I talk to. I learn from them, and hopefully they learn from me while also having a little fun (sometimes at my expense).

Point a finger and you have three pointing back at you

I’m not saying that you are a TERRIBLE person if you use Klout. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t get too bogged down in it. Ultimately, if you care about that kind of thing, you could just make your game a Klout tally score. You could trick people into clicking links. You could get a bunch of your friends to retweet everything you say. Your Klout score would probably skyrocket in just a couple of days. But how does that really help you in the end? Ultimately, people will realize that that game is all you’re about. Hungry Hungry Hippo is really fun for about the first hour, and then people want to move on to Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble, right? Well, it’s the same kind of thing. I think people who use Twitter to communicate person-to-person find it much more rewarding, in all of the ways that Klout.com doesn’t measure. Just my opinion, but I’m sticking to it.

1st Image by sebile akcan. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/sebileakc

2nd image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/rubenshito

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Cristian Gonzales says

    September 26, 2010 at 1:50 am

    A. I love the picture of the cats (I’m a sucker for kitties), ha ha.

    B. I found this particular post rather amusing. I just got done watching the kick off episode of the 2nd season of Glee (if you aren’t watching it Marjorie, you’re missing out), and for some reason the post reminded me of something one of those kids from Glee would say after having a revelation of sorts. It’s understanding that one’s value and worth shouldn’t be determined by someone else’s judgment.

    However, I think a strong Klout score is kinda cool—though I agree—it shouldn’t be incredibly important. I think it’s a nice little badge someone can wear and be proud of, but that’s about it.

    Though I gotta admit…I like shiny badges. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Reply
    • Marjorie Clayman says

      September 26, 2010 at 8:41 am

      I am a sucker for kitties as well. Sadly, I am deathly allergic to them ๐Ÿ™

      Reply
      • Cristian Gonzales says

        September 26, 2010 at 11:10 am

        Oh, that stinks Marjorie. ๐Ÿ™

        I’m allergic to Tapioca…sigh. I love Tapioca.

        Reply
  2. Suzanne Vara says

    September 26, 2010 at 2:52 am

    Marjorie

    I go a bit nuts over people caring so much about the numbers. It is maddening to me. I do not want to be measured by a number. Thinking about this, we have been measured by numbers for so long – height, weight, age, salary, grades – the list goes on an on. If someone wants to look at my twitter, LI and FB and say that I have X friends/followers/connections and either I do or do not matter then I have to say thank you very much but I do not see where that matters. If I have a lot does that mean that I am so incredibly smart that you have to have a piece of this brain? If I have a little or what is beneath your standards does that mean that you shun me as I am not someone. Hmh. It is interesting that people do think this way – why yes many are the ones that are trying to ride your coat tails and gain popularity off of you. I get fired up about this as I do not understand so much that mentality. If you perceive me as popular because I have a lot of followers and you have to jump on that bandwagon to get a piece of me please tell me what are you offering to ME? Um your follow? Nice.

    I am me. I am not a number. I am not a coat tail rider nor do I want any on mine (I already have one very gorgeous lil boy who pretty much occupies all that space anyway). I do not live in the fantasy world where everyone online that I converse with will be my BFF or even someone I can trust or will even be around talking to me tomorrow as I did not give them instant popularity. That is how they work, not me.

    If you want to judge me by my Klout score, by all means go ahead. I am not going to stop you. Heck, I probably will not even know that you did it. If you think that my SM efforts are based upon a number and not who I am then you missed a blog post on a very popular blog on Aug 18th. It is people and not the numbers we need to pay attention to. I let my doc and my accountant look at me for the numbers. Everyone else, look at me for me or do not look at all.

    Reply
    • Marjorie Clayman says

      September 26, 2010 at 8:41 am

      Wow – now there’s some passion for you.

      You should copy, paste, *maybe* edit a bit, and post this to your own blog.

      Reply
    • Cristian Gonzales says

      September 26, 2010 at 11:56 am

      You bring up some good points Suzanne. I do agree that throughout our lives we are judged by the numbers. It starts at childhood and it goes into adulthood. It’s a never ending situation.

      However, the general public/mainstream consumer needs *something* to go by when it comes to judging the value of things, and numbers are a part of that. Firms and brands, for example, value numbers *a lot*. Let’s say that someone is pitching social media to a brand, and they are giving stats left and right about how influential and powerful social media is. Then when the directors at the brand ask for the person’s Twitter profile, they visit it, and see they have a measly number of followers. *That* speaks volumes. How can they trust someone with a low number of Twitter followers, and expect that person to be someone they can rely on for a successful social media campaign? Taking it one step further, let’s say the brand knows what a Klout score is. They check the person’s Klout score and it’s pretty low. Again, it doesn’t look good. Numbers = value to a brand (as it does for most), and it’s important to take that into consideration.

      If one has a good understand of the way Twitter works, they should be more influenced by a user’s content vs their actual number of followers—but heck—even Marjorie pointed out that one of the things she looks out for when it comes to a Twitter user is checking to see if they have more people following them vs. the number of people the user is following. Marjorie points out that isn’t the only thing she looks for, and it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker if the user happens to be following more people vs. those who are following them, but it is something she takes into consideration. That is an evaluation of numbers, a lot of us do it (in fact, most of us do it from my experience).

      Yes, numbers can be incredibly deceptive about the value of someone on Twitter. Agreed. God knows how many profiles I’ve seen with thousands of followers where their content is basically nothing of value. But when you can combine great content + strong numbers, it equals gold on Twitter, and it does make you stand out just that much more on the platform. That can only be a good thing in the end.

      Remind me to check my Klout score sometime this week, ha ha. ๐Ÿ˜‰

      Reply
    • Cristian Gonzales says

      September 26, 2010 at 12:14 pm

      A recent article on Mashable to consider for the discussion of this post…

      http://mashable.com/2010/09/25/twitter-celebrities/

      Goes to show: numbers don’t mean everything, but it doesn’t take away the fact that people still look at them.

      Food for thought.

      Reply
  3. Diane Brogan says

    September 26, 2010 at 5:40 am

    Great post. I didn’t know about Klout.com until I read about it here. I agree that you don’t need it. You are fine just the way you are.

    Reply
    • Marjorie Clayman says

      September 26, 2010 at 8:40 am

      Thanks, Diane ๐Ÿ™‚

      Most people are!

      Reply
  4. Melody says

    September 26, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    I love your concept of a “thank you” scale. In my mind it’s important to acknowledge those that give us shout outs, fun conversation, and re-tweets. While I don’t expect it back, I don’t want to be ignored either. This means I offer a few thank yous now and then even if it means I risk losing followers who feel alienated because now their twitter stream has been cluttered with “thank yous.’ And then I’m more thankful for those who stick with me.

    Reply
    • Marjorie Clayman says

      September 26, 2010 at 10:37 pm

      Thank yous are tough on Twitter because if you miss someone it can be hurtful. I sometimes use emails or direct messages to get the job done ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
    • Cristian Gonzales says

      September 26, 2010 at 11:19 pm

      #FF shout-outs seem to help, with a little personal message attached for those tweets where you want to single a few people out. That seems to be an acceptable version of “thank you’s” to most Twitter users. You would expect your Twitter thread to have a bunch of #FF mentions on Fridays. Most people don’t seem the slightest bit annoyed by it from my experience.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Klout doesn’t measure what really matters | Margie's Library of Marketing Musings and Morsels says:
    February 19, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    […] to be the topic that won’t die. I am as guilty as everybody. I’ve written about my distaste for the whole concept of Klout, I’ve done a presentation exploring Klout with a more unbiased approach, and now I’m […]

    Reply
  2. Klout « misoskop says:
    February 20, 2011 at 4:26 am

    […] Auch wenn sich die Autorin davon mittlerweile ein wenig entfernt hat, ihre erste Einschรคtzung ist weiterhin valide: Man muss seinen Klout-Score nicht kennen. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post: « Just in case you thought sexism was dead
Next Post: A little note about the “cool kids” »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Seeing Double: African American Literature
  • Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Book Review: Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson
  • The portrayal of the infertile woman in entertainment
  • Chapter 3: A Weird Thing Happened Today

Recent Comments

  • Delores Baskerville on Are you locking out blog subscribers?
  • frank c tripoli on Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Lyv on #30Thursday number 10 (we’re in the double digits?!?)
  • Fitoru on New Recipes, 2013
  • Anna Wyatt on Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

Archives

  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2017
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2007
  • April 2007

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Crafts and Charity
  • Gardening for Renters
  • Marketing Talk
  • Molly Maggie McGuire
  • Musings
  • PassionPlayers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Footer

marjorie.clayman@gmail.com

   

Margie Clayman © 2021