I first heard about Klout a few years ago and my initial response was the same when G+ came out…not another social media site. However, Klout isn’t about social networking in the same way G+ or Facebook is. Instead, it measures your social influence based on a variety of factors and gives you a score from 0 to 100. I’m not sure if anyone has a score of 100. Richard Branson has a score of 91, which is the highest I’ve ever seen. The average score is in the 40s.
You don’t have to actually be signed up with Klout to have a score, but if you’re not signed up and have your social networks connected to Klout, your score might be lower that it could be. Right now, Klout evaluates engagement on Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Youtube, Tumbler, Blogger, WordPress.com, Last.fm, Flickr and Yammer. It would be nice if it also included Pinterest and RSS feeds (i.e. for podcasts).
One thing that is nice about Klout is that it’s not about having the most followers. Klout measures and scores based on engagement. In essence, it’s measuring influence, which is important if you have a blog or business that benefits from having a market that listens to you. If you want to sell advertising or work with brands, influence, more than number of followers is important.
To learn more about Klout and how to build it, check out my article What is Klout and Do I Need It? over at Home Business About.com.
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