Posted on by Jordyn Redwood

What’s Your Klout Score?

I have to admit, I’m a numbers girl, which may strike you as funny because math is certainly not my talent. Likely, it comes from my nursing background and my need for instant gratification. My “real-life” job concerns fixing my patient’s numbers—moving them in the right direction. Lowering temperature, easing difficulty breathing, or bringing back a heart rate when there isn’t one. It’s all about trending in the right direction. Wrong patient trends need intervention.

Recently, I was reading Rachelle Gardner’s blog and came across her discussion on “numbers” and how you could use certain statistics, like blog hits, in your book proposal to help a publisher make a decision to go forward with your novel. Of course, a strong book is paramount but it is foolish to think that a potential employer, your publisher, isn’t looking at your on-line presence as a way to help their decision.

Rachelle mentioned a Klout score and I hadn’t heard of this so off to the website I go.

Klout, in one place, analyzes the effectiveness of your on-line presence. Once you allow it access from your social networking sites—and they do have a lot of them—it performs some genius unknown mathematical calculation so you can get a glimpse of your on-line life in a couple of areas.

First score measures your influence. It’s based on a scale of 1-100. One hundred being the best score you can have. Currently, I’m at 42.23 which places me as a “Dabbler”. Under Klout style, it will show other people you likely know, what their score is and where they land style-wise. That was a fun comparison because I knew several of the people and their on-line presence. Most I admire as something to aim toward.

Then is your true reach score. This measures how many people you influence. My score is currently 404. The site allows you to see other people’s scores as well. I compared myself to a known author and her reach was 877. I didn’t necessarily feel bad about that. She has three novels currently published and a savvy internet presence.

Next score is amplification which is how much you influence people. My score currently sits at 19. Not great but I’m just starting out so a definite growth opportunity—not weakness, right?

Last score is for network. This scores the impact of your network. The more people that comment, share and respond to your content, the higher your score will be. My score here is 51.

Klout also looks at topics you’re influential about. Mine are medical (yeah!), technology (really?), authors (excellent), blogging (surprised!) and childbirth (yikes—don’t ask me how.)

Also, it will list who you influence and whom your influenced by. Fun information.

Overall, I think Klout will be a good way to measure your on-line presence and whether or not it is growing. Sometimes, when I look at my Blogger statistics, I think the information is limited. I can see my stats are increasing but for me, that just may be more people are perusing by. That’s not bad but I like how Klout looks at your influence and overall reach. These are good numbers to gauge. If they are steadily climbing, my efforts are working versus a downturn would lead me to consider changing up what I’m doing.

Are you on Klout? What’s your score? Have you used your scores to change what you’re doing on-line?

For an alternate opinion on how valuable this score is, check out this post entitled: Why Your Klout Score is Meaningless.

 

22 Replies to “What’s Your Klout Score?”

  1. I recently checked out Klout and was surprised by numbers. While not great, they were better than I would have expected. I’m not a big numbers person either, but I’m curious what steps we can take to improve our numbers. Any ideas?

    1. Keli,

      I did notice my score jumped quite a bit when I started playing around on Google+ as I hadn’t really been active there. Problem is, it takes time away from writing to stay really active on all these soical media sites. There’s a fine balance.

      I think I’m going to stick with the social media sites I’m currently on and focus on building relationships rather than just being everywhere.

      What do you think?

  2. Klout is odd. I can’t figure it out. My score was at around 50, then it dropped rapidly even though I was really active on Twitter. It’s very hard to see what influences it. I guess fewer people were retweeting me or something. Then it climbed back to 50 again. I don’t do anything differently, but it keeps fluctuating.

    Then it says I’m influential about things that I know absolutely nothing about and have never posted about. I ONCE retweeted a funny thing about recycling that someone else posted and apparently that makes me influential about the environment. I haven’t got a clue how it decided I was influential about photography.

    I love numbers too (and am also NOT a math person), but it’s frustrating that I can’t seem to do anything to affect the Klout numbers.

    1. Ruth,

      Very interesting. Did you happen to read the alternate opinion from the link I posted?

      That’s what happened to me with childbirth. The only thing I could figure out was that I have an OB nurse post for me on my blog and I guest blog over at Erin MacPherson’s Christian Mama’s Guide (which is an awesome blog!- thanks Erin). I guess that’s how I became authoritative…

      I think you’re right– numbers are only good if they can provide accurate and real information. Anyone can cook the books, right? It will be interesting to see how “important” people begin to view it.

      I think actual number of blog hits, speaking engagements, etc… are a better measurement.

      Thanks for the comment.

  3. Klout is one of the things I haven’t conquered yet but it is on my list. Thanks for the summary, which will help me and any other people like me out there who need it.
    Also Ruth’s comment above gives me pause. Good to get different viewpoints. I’m off to look at my own Klout scores.

    1. One thing about Klout is that it is very easy to get started. I listed my blog over at Technorati which made me feel like I needed an IT degree to get started. I mean, I was actually hunting for a phrase in my blog code. Yikes! If you knew how scary that was for me… honestly, I was waiting for my computer to blow up and take my novel along with it. But, I did give myself a huge pat on the back when I did it!

      Report back and tell me what you think!

  5. I agree with Ruth — it’s frustrating to figure out what influences it. I have a good FB presence (my own page with a decent number of fans), but it almost seems like Klout is skewed and puts more weight on Twitter. And it fluctuates a lot, and, as Ruth pointed out, for almost no discernible reason. I hover between 40 and 45.

    1. Thanks for your comment, Robyn. Some things are a mystery on Klout for me too. I hit the 40’s but I was still called a Dabbler. Hhhmmmm…..

  6. I just dipped my toe into the Klout waters too. I’d heard something of it earlier this summer when RWA was going on, but I didn’t sign up then. I’ve been a Klout user now for about a week, and I’m still trying to gauge how important the numbers are, how I can manipulated them with tweets, comments, posts, etc. and where all the buttons and tabs are. 🙂

    I’m a little leery about using Klout. I don’t want to get fixated on the numbers and forget that all this social networking is supposed to be about people and making connections and seeing what you have in common.

    1. I agree, Erica. As I said above, I think the temptation with Klout is to get on every social site they list. However, some just are not beneficial for me and it’s too much time to be active everywhere. I’m going to focus on those sites I can maintain— where I can build relationships with others. For me that’s Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn hasn’t been good for me personally.

  7. My Klout score fluctuates with my Twitter interactions. If I have public interaction with people, it keeps the score up. If I have to be away for a while – life, writing, etc. it drops. I really enjoy connections and relationships developed via Twitter, so I don’t get too freaked out (but, yeah, I look).

    1. Thanks for your comment, Stacy. I’ll have to monitor my Twitter tweets and see if I notice any difference.

  8. Hmmm…my brain is chugging to process all this. Jordyn, I think this post was excellent. I am hazarding a guess that since we’re WRITERS, math may not be our forte. However, you presented it in a way that I could really appreciate. I also read the post you linked too. If anyone does that, they should also read the comments because the head honcho of Klout responds to that guy’s post. I feel like the jury is out on how effective all this is going to be for book sales/reader connection. Not just Klout, but the whole idea of an “online presence” and social media. There are so many variables. I don’t believe sales/effective marketing is an absolute numbers game (# of friends, likes, followers, subscribers,etc). I think it is derived numbers and the data is anecdotal and fragile.

    1. All good points, Charise! I do think, most importantly, it’s about the relationships you build with people. Just because I have x number of followers– doesn’t mean each and every one will purchase a book. I heard someone say it translates to about 1% of followers go through with a book purchase.

      I’ll take the point of asking for endorsements. If the author I asked actually knew me, even a little, that at least opened the door. If I truly never met them… so much easier to say no.

      Building genuine relationships, I think, is the best marketing strategy. The social networks are a way to get started.

  9. So Klout says it “thinks I’m influential about the topic Pittsburgh Penguins.”

    Huh?

    I don’t even know what that’s referencing. Is it a professional sports team? A movie ala “Bad News Bears?” Or is there an infestation of penguins in Pittsburgh I don’t know about?

    😉

    The long and short: I’ve never uttered anything in my life about Pittsburgh Penguins. Yet somehow, I’m influential about that topic. Interesting…

    Of course, my other top topics are “Parenting” and “Vodka.” Yay me! (and yes, Social Services is probably on its way…).

    Great post — thanks for the insights…

    1. Mikalee— that totally cracks me up. How hilarious! I guess I know who to go to for info on penguins who love vodka.

      And, as a pediatric nurse, your comment about social services is awesome. If I would have had those two things pop up I would have thought the same thing. One little drink of vodka– (just one small one-people!) can make the parenting unwind a little easier.

      Jordyn

  11. Pingback: Marketing Your Debut Novel: Part One | WordServe Water Cooler

Comments are closed.