Klout.com – Figuring Out Your Twitter Influence

Many website businesses owner and individual understand the benefits for using Twitter as a customer service channel, marketing platform, news feeds, or networking tool. The Twitter site doesn’t come with a very good owners manual, however it’s fairly basic in its use.

Fortunately there are a couple of really useful third party applications to measure Twitter use. Klout is one of the best available. Klout has been making major inroads into the emerging social media measurement business. And, with other third party tools like CoTweet, Radian 6, and Seesmic now pulling in Klout data, a growing audience of social network users are discovering and exploring what Klout means to them.

What is Klout?
Klout is an application that measures a persons influence on Twitter and is one of the most scientific ways of measuring Twitter data. A persons Klout score will range anywhere from 0 to 100 and is determined by several factors: a users true reach, amplification probability, and network influence. True reach is measured by estimating the size of a users engaged audience. Inactive accounts, spam accounts, and followers you have no influence over are eliminated in the calculation process. The remaining “true followers” that a person has left are measured by determining the influence you have with each individual. Amplification probability is determining the chance that your tweet will be retweeted by someone else or will cause someone to @reply in response. The final factor in determining Klout score is network influence. Network influence is a measurement of the Klout score of all your followers to determine how influential they are. After taking about an hour to calculate true reach, amplification probability, and network influence, a users Klout score can be determined.

So, how can you increase your Klout score? Here are my top tips for intelligent Klout usage:

Check out your own Klout score and compare with people or businesses you like. If your score is lower, what do the other people do that you don’t? What can you identify in their behaviour that marks them out as more influential social media players than you? Learn from others and your online influence may rise.

Be selective about your social media activities. Quality is more important than quantity.

Remember:

• Content that falls on deaf ears is pointless
• Content that attracts engagement is priceless

Klout generally rewards good social media behaviour so if you are interesting and informative, and start attracting lots of followers without first having to follow even more your Klout score may rise. Think about the reasons people use social networks like Twitter and try to play to these motivations not your own ego or agenda.

Klout cares more about what your followers do than what you do. If your content gets spread across Twitter or your name  gets added to lists that others follow, you Klout score may rise accordingly. So focus on keeping your followers happy, sharing content they’ll find interesting and be likely to pass on.

If you have an account on Facebook be sure to add this to Klout to provide additional data points to measure your online influence.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t get hung up on your Klout score. If you do something interesting, attract more followers, or get lots of retweets, that’s great.

The primary criticism Klout receives is that it can only measure the quantity of a person’s influence, not the quality, and this remains a major shortcoming of the tool. Klout remains one of the best automated ways to assess your online influence and network. And, as long as you use it wisely and in moderation, Klout can help you learn how to engage in social media for better results.

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