Is Klout credible?

If you've launched yourself into participating in social media using say, Twitter, it is likely that you have seen a few tweets from people asking if you need help in gaining more followers. You might have heard of Klout too. 

The thinking is that getting more followers on Twitter will propel your business or personal brand so that you can influence people more effectively. Klout is a service which launched to measure your influence. This post aims to show whether Klout has any real value.

Influence
Influence is a coveted asset in social interaction which can be superficially satisfied by getting more followers. It feels good when lots of people start to follow you on social networking sites. You start to see the follower numbers rising and you get excited that your influence will follow suit.

But, the reality is that it is relatively easy to gain followers on Twitter by way of a technical fact that many Twitter accounts are set up to automatically follow people back who follow them. You can use tools like Twollo and SocialOomph to do this for you by setting them to follow anyone who use a specific keyword in their tweets or in their profile. You set up these tools, switch them to auto-pilot and watch the followers rise while those you are following rises too.
So, the reality is that you have gained little real influence through the use of automation tools. It's not real influence. Your followers are just a product of a robotic process.

Social Network Analysis
In 2009, a new service launched called 'Klout'. It was was designed to measure your online influence by aggregating all of your social media activity to carry out social network analysis to give you a Klout score. Your score also comes with a description of you which denotes whether you are perhaps a 'Specialist' or an 'Explorer'.

My current score is about 49 and I am described as a 'Specialist'. Klout believes I am influential in the following areas, in descending order: Business (OK, that's good), Publishing (Yes, good), Vanity (what the..?), Bedroom (I hope my wife isn't reading this), and Ocean (I'm feeling sea sick).

Klout picked those words from post I wrote in this blog and other blogs and has taken them out of context. I wrote one post called 'Start a factory in your bedroom' which is where the 'Bedroom' reference comes from.

I asked the well known and truly influential blogger Chris Brogan for his opinion on Klout's and his reply was succinct: "Zero Value". I had a conversation with Thomas Power, the founder of Ecademy, on Google+ after watching one of his tech talks where he spoke about companies that won't hire people with Klout scores of less then 50, and asked for his view on the value of Klout. He said it was not about influence on Klout. Your score is about time spent online. He wrote that it did not matter who you were communicating with online as long as you communicating. Really?

Lucky Escape
I tend to agree with Chris Brogan about Klout and its importance to measuring your influence through social media. The best way to influence people online through social media and offline is to be helpful and open by providing them with valuable content and ideas.

Don't go chasing a Klout score through just spending time online which provides no value to anyone. If anyone asks you for your Klout score in an interview start making for the door. You might have just had a lucky escape. Spend more time working on great content for your followers and sharing it through social media rather the chasing an abitrary score.