To Klout or Not to Klout

This week at my internship, my boss looked at me and asked what my Klout score was.  I looked at him somewhat confused then remembered Klout is a website that measures your impact on social media.  I signed up and all week my boss and I have become obsessed with Klout.  

Klout measures your retweets, replies, followers and the topics you discuss on Twitter.  On Facebook, Klout measures how many likes, wall posts, and comments you receive.  Other social media sties can be connected to your Klout, but Twitter and Facebook seem to be the main drivers behind a Klout score.

Your Klout score is updated daily, with influencers and topics updated weekly.  Businesses can use this to see how affective they are with their audiences on social media.  A score goes up by creating great content that people want to share and respond to. If a business wanted to try a new social media strategy, they could use Klout to see if this strategy was affective and could measure the success of the strategy.  

Klout also wants to allow brands to reach and engage with their audiences through Klout Perks.  Klout Perks are rewards that Klout users receive through their Klout scores and the topics that they are seen as influencers on.  Klout Perks seem to be the main drive behind people joining Klout.  Some perks have been advanced screening of a movie, laptops and trips all over the world.  People who are against Klout as an effective measuring tool find the perks as problematic because they say Klout favors certain topics, therefore having the same people win perks over and over again.  

Klout Perks to me seem the most useful for a business using Klout, like the theater. Businesses and brands can start a Klout Perk of their own.  If the theater created a Klout perk, it would be advertised on multiple social media platforms.  To win the perk, the theater’s social media followers would need to discuss it on their own social media accounts, creating more followers who would want to win the perk. 

After looking into Klout, do you think Klout would be useful for you or your business?



This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.