Thursday, August 11, 2011

Where Klout Fails

Obviously Klout has done a superb job of being the defacto measurement for online influence. But often I think they miss out on a lot of reality because they are only measuring such a teeny fraction of online behavior.

But recently when comparing my 50 Klout score to three Klout rock stars with 75, 77, and 82 respectively I found something very interesting. If you look at gross numbers they have far superior numbers to me. But as if you take mentions, retweeters, and retweets as a percentage of followers I have better numbers.

Meaning a higher percentage of my network is doing something in reaction to my tweets and participation with them than some Uuber Klout people. So while my network is smaller. I have much more significant Influence on my network than they have on theirs.

75 Klout


 This network has 13.8x more followers than me

77 Klout


This network has 5.3x more followers than me

82 Klout


This network has 15.4x more followers.

Just take my numbers and multiply it by these numbers and you will see 
my influence on my network in general is greater than their influence on theirs.
The point of this exercise is to have you think deeper about what is influence and just maybe the higher the score does not mean higher the influence. 

3 comments:

  1. Bravo! Bravissimmo!

    You may be interested that i wrote a post summarizing research which supports your finding: When smaller numbers are better.

    http://offthegrid-pr.com/socially-responsible-pr/2011/2/11/online-social-influence-when-smaller-numbers-are-better.html

    Thanks again and I'm off to run a similar analysis on my own account!

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  2. Lisa thank you so much for coming by! Loved your cross post. I really think many businesses need insightful people like us to navigate a world full of marketing predators who really exist with a main bias of making money for themselves, vs their clients.

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  3. I like the way you turned being smaller into positive. It worked for me when I was wooing my wife.....doh.

    That's right brother, let's stick up for the 50 K's. Klout said I was somebody, so that had to mean something.

    I'm just the 'show up' guy; if it ain't happenin' with me just showing up, then it's probably not going to happen.

    Good info and I knew I could count on you to boil it down to reality and cut through the BS.

    I think I'm going to put my Klout score on my business cards; I'm sure it will help my cold calling.

    Good to see you bud; thanks for your support this week, very much appreciated.

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