In case you’re not familiar with Klout, they are a company that is all about measuring online influence. They define ‘influence’ as “the ability to drive people to action.” Using the data from a user’s Twitter and Facebook profiles, Klout’s analytic engine determines a numerical value (between 1 and 100) of how influential that user is.
If you’re like me, then you’re always looking for ways to increase your influence, which will likely raise your Klout score. So I’ve compiled a brief list of tips and tricks to help you dramatically improve your Klout score, and ultimately your online influence.
1. Be Consistent
Post regularly while also making sure to avoid “Puking On Twitter“. Keep a steady flow of content that keeps your followers listening.
2. Quality Content
People don’t want to know that you are tying your shoe. And for the love of all things holy, do not inform us that you are tweeting on the toilet. Seriously, don’t do it. Post quality content that is interesting, and relevant to your followers. This could include inspirational quotes, scripture verses, or things that are witty and/or humorous. Quality communicates value, which ties into my next point.
3. Offer Value
Different from creating quality content, seek opportunities to offer value to those who follow you. Beyond just posting one-liners post links to relevant content (like this blog!) that will be valuable to your followers.
ADVANCED TIP: Try doing an advanced Twitter search for people who are asking a question you have an answer to! Then send them an @reply and offer them a valuable solution to what they’re looking for.
4. Engage
This is by far the most important factor in calculating your Klout score. This is the social part of Social Media. Klout focuses on @mentions, replies, click-throughs, “Likes”, and comments. It only makes sense that when these factors fluctuate your Klout score reflects it. If you want to raise your Klout score, you must have more people interacting with you and your content.
ADVANCED CASE STUDY:
My friend Chris Nicely did two experiments that dramatically increased his score. Controversial or not, they worked. What he did was start deleting previous tweets that didn’t yield any engagement (ex. no retweets, favorites, or replies). This then lowered his ratio of non-engaged tweets vs. engaged tweets.
Then he started posting more questions in hopes to provoke a response. On Twitter, he started getting more replies. On Facebook, he started getting a lot more comments and “Likes“. Some questions created so much discussion that they got over 20 comments per post!
In less than a week, Chris’s Klout score went from the high 40’s to a 70+! I told him he was a total cheater, but secretly I was jealous that I didn’t think of it first.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it is just a number. But if you understand what the number represents, and how it is determined, you can use it to refine and grow your influence.
How have you seen these work for you? Is there anything you would add to the list?
Paul Steinbrueck says
Hey Dunstin, I think we need to be careful with scores like Klout. Klout, like the number of Twitter followers, Facebook fans, or RSS subscribers, is just an intermediate metric. It’s good to know, but it’s not the ultimate goal. We have to be careful not to get caught up in doing things just to raise these intermediate metrics if those things don’t take us closer to our end goals.
BTW, when did Chris do these experiments? I looked at his Klout page – http://klout.com/#/LegacyMinded – and it shows that he went from 47 to 51 in the last month and is now just under 50.
DustinWStout says
Thanks for your input Paul!
I agree. It’s like I said in the final paragraph – “At the end of the day, it is just a number.” And one must define what their goal is, then from there discern whether or not measuring click-throughs, replies, retweets, comments, or likes is a good gauge at measuring effectiveness of the specific end goal. Do completely discount the data though, would be a mistake.
And Chris did these experiments two weeks ago. Once you disconnect your Facebook (which is what Chris did) you score retro-grades as if it was never connected. Try it out for yourself and see!
Paul Steinbrueck says
I agree. You have to keep things like your Klout score in perspective. Don’t discount it entirely, and don’t make it the center of your universe.
Are you saying when you go to http://klout.com/#/LegacyMinded, you see Chris’s score going from 40 to 70? If so, that’s interesting because when I look at it, it never goes higher than 51 or lower than 47 in the last month.
I’ve never connected Klout to my Facebook profile.
DustinWStout says
We’re totally agreed then! BTW, I love your site. Keep up the great work!
When you connect your FB account, your Klout score jumps (usually 10-15 points). If you disconnect it, the score drops back to where it was, as if it was NEVER there to begin with. So if it is disconnected, you would not see evidence of it in the score timeline. Does that make sense?
Paul Steinbrueck says
Ahhh, ok. Gotcha!
David Willard Jr says
I think the score is a great tool for those who want to see if they are reaching their target audience and if the topics they are being noted for is what they are shooting for but I am curious as to how accurate their software is at gathering the data. I know I am seeing my numbers go up and I have my Twitter and Facebook connected and it says it seems to have over a month’s worth of data and yet you Dustin are the only one listed under my persons Influenced and still no topics. I do know that I have a good deal of likes and a few comments on my posts about church and the activities we attend there so it seems the data is getting dropped somewhere. Perhaps you could use you influence and this article to get some inside track on the “topics” topic from the source for us as a follow up.
DustinWStout says
They have been having some ‘bugs’ in their transition to the new site, implementing the “topics” engine, connecting LinkedIn scores, and a few other new and fun features. You happened to sign up right in that weird buggy period.
Fear not though, it will all balance out soon!
David Willard Jr says
I figure it will eventually. I am not so concerned with the number, but I really would like to see what the topics are and who it really thinks I am influencing if anyone..lol. We shall see.
Rob says
Great explanation, very helpful…thanks. I have to be honest to say that I don’t really care about my number, but it’s cool to know what it means!
Dustin W. Stout says
Yup! The more you know…
Richard Cassidy says
Article Update:
Under Heading #3. Offer Value
“ADVANCED TIP: Try doing an advanced Twitter search”
The advanced twitter search link http://search.twitter.com/advanced returns, “The Twitter REST API v1 is no longer active. Please migrate to API v1.1.
http://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/overview“