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The explosion of social media over the past few years has been accompanied by an explosion in social data, and we are now beginning to see the fruits of early efforts to measure, quantify, and leverage this data. Klout.com is one early standout in this emerging trend in trend analysis. Using “over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter,” Klout aims to provide the standard for measurement of social influence.
Klout’s website lists and explains the use of three variables in its analysis of influence:
True Reach is the size of your engaged audience and is based on those of your followers and friends who actively listen and react to your messages. Amplification Score is the likelihood that your messages will generate actions (retweets, @messages, likes and comments) and is on a scale of 1 to 100. Network score indicates how influential your engage audience is and is also on a scale from 1 to 100. The Klout score is highly correlated to clicks, comments and retweets.
Klout’s focus is on individuals rather than things since individuals are the actors in the social universe. Things (such as articles, products, images, etc.) are shared and “liked” on the web, but it is the individual who shares and likes them. Influence, then, is a property of social actors, not products.
This does not mean that Klout has nothing to offer businesses, however. In fact, Klout devotes a section of its site to the interests of businesses. The idea is that businesses can search Klout’s database to find those individuals who have promoted their products or brands most effectively: “Your business needs influencers. They’re already talking about your industry and maybe even your products. Find and engage these influencers and they can become evangelists for your brand.” They even offer “Klout Perks” as a way to reward effective influencers.
Klout scores can also be integrated into apps. This integration allows developers and owners to filter data collected by their app according to influence. For instance, if a company uses social search, it can rank results based on the influence, as measured by Klout, of people associated with a given term. They also suggest that Klout can help businesses measure the influence of potential customers and leads.
So what do you think? Have you jumped onboard with Klout? How would you judge your experience so far?
More on the web:
Klout.com
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