This is a collection of my comments and thoughts in the wave of recent changes on Klout. I will continue to update it.
I use Posterous for casual posting, what I call “Twitter extensions”. This is not a complete treatment of this topic
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Peek You
My comment on BL Ochman’s: A New and Better Way to Measure Twitter Influence (PeekYou):
This is certainly an opportune time to be talking about influence measuring. I just spent three days at BlogWorld Expo LA. There was a lot of discussion in the halls between people who have large social networks, as well as the traditional media mentions that you say PeekYou will include, about their frustration with Klout since the latest algo change.
One measure none of these influence measurement systems take into account is off-line relationships. I come from a background of multinational subsidiary CEO positions in Japan – where my off-line network with other CEO’s was extensive. Since returning to the US and incorporating social media, my inclination to building off-line relationships to complement my on-line relationships remains important to me.
I would also love to see a system that can acknowledge multiple Twitter accounts. Because Klout can only “connect” one of them, the second one is hobbled. In reality the second one should lend weight to the first one.
People who “know me” see me as a connector and influencer. I hope some day the measurement tools catch up to that.
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Trying to Understand the New Klout Algorithm
update Nov 21: Commented on Judy Shapiro’s AdAge article:
Nice to see this discussion in AdAge. Good job Judy. Regarding one point you made “This group, largely made up of bloggers, authors and Indies with scores in the 40s to 60s, got clobbered” … I am wondering if you meant they were knocked down to 40’s to 60’s? Because that is what I saw with a significant group of Klout supporters who had scores from the low 60’s to 80 that were knocked down to high 40’s through high 60’s. Twitter star @AdventureGirl – with over a million followers is at 55.
A score in the 40’s is now shared by people with deep social media experience and networks created over years of relationship building and relative newbies.
One of the short-comings with most influence measurement tools is the incapability to measure off-line influence. Evidence like relationships with executives are difficult to “see”. Systems where we “vouch” for each other feel uncomfortable to some. I have gotten several clumsy auto-post “vouches” for connect.me lately as people search for Klout alternatives. Kred could possibly be interesting – one nice feature they mention is incorporating traditional media mentions.
A medley of analytical tools is the best answer, but with Klout baked into the popular Twitter platform, Hootsuite, for the time being the influence of Klout’s score is difficult to avoid.
Merlin U Ward’s blogged about testing the new Klout algorithm in his post http://merlinuward.com/business/customers/klout-needs-a-hug
You can see that I used the DISQUS comments space there as a place to collect rumors flying around during BlogWorld LA while we searched for clues on the new algorithm.
Some of the biggest concerns were that it appeared that the new system deprecated sociability and generosity.
Many thought leaders at BlogWorld said loudly they didn’t like Klout and didn’t care but there were also many who have supported Klout from the beginning, and do care. These include social media professionals whose Klout scores have been beaten down to Twitter newbie levels without a clue why. When I say “newbie” I am referring to my clients, not someone who doesn’t know what they are doing.
Like many, I was very active on Twitter during BlogWorld and guest hosted BlogChat Sunday night, both reflected in high engagement but my score didn’t budge. So maybe at this point something is broken on Klout? Or as I hypothesized in my comments on Merlin’s article – might the use of a #tag (as used in events, Twitter chats and also by marketers for key words) be a signal to Klout to deprecate a mention or retweet.
Over 1,000 comments on the Klout announcement of the change:
I just had this exchange:
Lia Keyes
What I don’t understand is: how can my daughter, who is new to Twitter and whose overall following across different social media totals 1200 followers, have a higher Klout score (by ten points) than I do, with over 8,000 followers and a far more active online presence? Also, her score went up by 45 points in the last two weeks. And mine decreased by over 20 points. If you want to claim transparency, show us how this works! Linda Sherman in reply to Lia Keyes
I definitely know how you feel @LiaKeyes. I am seeing this type of comparison for myself a lot. There are those that think there may be an effect like edgerank on Facebook where engagement is based on a PERCENT of followers. That is why you shouldn’t do a sweepstakes on Facebook because you collect unengaged followers
What I don’t understand is: how can my daughter, who is new to Twitter and whose overall following across different social media totals 1200 followers, have a higher Klout score (by ten points) than I do, with over 8,000 followers and a far more active online presence? Also, her score went up by 45 points in the last two weeks. And mine decreased by over 20 points. If you want to claim transparency, show us how this works! Linda Sherman in reply to Lia Keyes
I definitely know how you feel @LiaKeyes. I am seeing this type of comparison for myself a lot. There are those that think there may be an effect like edgerank on Facebook where engagement is based on a PERCENT of followers. That is why you shouldn’t do a sweepstakes on Facebook because you collect unengaged followers
In the comments, I noted some interesting speculation on the correlation of significant score drops with highly networked participants. The more interconnected and related a group, the less weight on their reactions to each other. Though others say that accounts that are just chattering went up.
Also seeing a number of comments from users that Facebook may have become more important than Twitter.
update: Nov 21: I am not seeing any lift from Facebook threads with extensive comments. Might be seen as a percentage of network, since mine is relatively large (though very selective).
My comment:
Robert, I love this post and the comments on it. One thing that occurs to me as I look through the comments on this Klout event, it reminds me of the Shared Twitter Experience that I wrote about on ItsDifferent4Girls. It is happening to a large group of us at the same time. As far as I can see, it is mainly hitting marketers and social media pros. The vast majority of us strongly supported Klout before this happened. It is emotional. Kind of like going through a natural crisis together. I have been looking for those that are doing research on the issue. I am adding your post and this comment to my collection of thoughts on my casual Posterous blog where I am working through this bit by bit http://asklindasherman.com/klout-alternatives-and-trying-to-understand-t
The Twitter Community Shared Experience post I refer to in the comment just above from Robert Caruso’s BundlePost is: http://itsdifferent4girls.com/2009/12/twitter-community-shared-experience/
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Kred
There is a new kid on the block: Kred. Kred was announced September 29 and is owned by PeopleBrowsrs. Kred is currently under highly limited beta testing and not yet launched but you can pre-request an invite on the site. James Hicks kindly sent me his post when I asked about it on Twitter:
More Kred links: http://bolindigital.com/you-might-have-klout-but-whats-your-kred
Interesting slide show from Kred. Emphasis on transparency and sociability.
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