What the Klout

Over my lunch break I decided to check my Klout score, not because I believe that Klout is a credible tool of influence measurement but because I was curious and looking for something to do. 

It turns out that I am influential about:

  • Jack Sparrow
  • Hong Kong
  • Dolls

Yup, that’s what Klout told me. 

If you don’t know what Klout is, here’s a brief introduction to what I believe is one of the most useless tools on the internet (I am not bitter, I just think that today’s finding proves what a bunch of codswallop Klout really is). Klout provides a general ranking of one’s influence on the internet across a number of social media platforms, most recently Klout has been in the news because it reassessed its measurement calculation procedure. There were people up in arms because their Klout score dropped below 70. 

My problem is not necessarily with the Klout Score that you are given when you log in, but rather the topics that pigeon-hole you as a lover of cheese, Dallas or Jack Sparrow. I mean really… Jack Sparrow… 

Aside from the odd tweet to friends, I tend to share relevant industry articles with colleagues or tweet about Hong Kong events (I will let them have the Hong Kong influence). Sometimes I tweet about clothes because I love clothes. Never once have I tweeted about Jack Sparrow or dolls - so how does that make me influential about the subject?*

So I decided to check out my colleague’s scores - Klout allows you to a) look at how low your friend’s scores are so that you can laugh at the from across the office and b) see what they are truly influential about.

Emma, my bubbly colleague and long-time Twitter lover influences her followers about magic, kiwi and Beyonce. (I’d like to highlight that Emma is from New Zealand and not in to citrus fruit). JoJo, a super lovely Somerset lass living the PR dream at Racepoint Group Asia likes to discuss Toy Story, Public Relations (thank goodness one of us does) and Cape Town. 

I then went on to have a look at other Tweeters - people who I genuinely respect and admire in the industry. Of course their scores are super high and they are influential about social media, marketing, public relations, Apple, Facebook, etc. Damn. But is that just because their friends have given them a K+ in these subjects? Maybe, maybe not. But I now feel a sudden urge to right my colleagues incorrect labelling of influencers about fruit and children’s cartoons. 

What I find greatly frustrating is that people still see genuine value in Klout. This is a tool that changed its metric calculation to disrupt a legion of followers who believed that one’s Klout score was the be-all-and-end-all. Surely no one cares anymore?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a great social media influencer. I’m learning, just like everybody else (you are always learning when something is constantly changing, and if you aren’t, you’re not doing it properly)… but I do not see value in using a tool that cannot even collate your hash-tags and most commonly used words to decipher what topics you like to tweet about. 

- Charlotte

*I just found one Jack Sparrow tweet. Damn.