Connecting with people that have “lower Klout scores” can kill your Klout score. But it can also make good friends & generate real business. People are more important than Klout.
You will always be more important than my Klout score; period. People matter more than numbers. I make it a habit of connecting with most people on social media “who are not robots“. If I can see that you are human, I will make every effort to connect with you. If you are one-way broadcasting, now that’s a different story.
I have made so many great friends on social media. They come with a wide variety of Klout scores. I really do enjoy tweeting and Facebooking with you all. You are what makes social media meaningful to me.
Could you imagine this?…”I can’t be your friend because your Klout score is not high enough!” “Sorry I can’t date you because your Klout score is not high enough!”
I do see that connecting with others can lower your Klout score. Who really cares? Social media means that “People Matter” period. Maybe we ought to have “Kindness” scores instead of Klout scores. Now that would be a score worth pushing ahead for!
I saw a tweet from Klout that said that only 5% have a Klout score of 50 and above. The average score is 20. To this end, I also believe that most of us are not up all night worrying about how we can get our Klout score higher.
After all, at your funeral, people are not going to rave over your Klout score. They will remember the fact that you mattered to others. That’s what we should be truly focusing on. You can matter on social media by simply saying “Hi” and being a voice of encouragement. What ever your Klout score is, enjoy it. But remember what truly matters: people.
Connect often and encourage much!
“If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” – Red Green 🙂
I agree completely. I don’t think Klout et al are a permanent fixture of the social media landscape. Klout thinks it is selling a solution when they really only have a feature: Most social media monitoring tools of any worth have in them a way of determining salience, aka influence. Most search engines will get there soon too. This is where this “feature” belongs, in a context that has some value.
I agree too that the secret sauce algorithms are plainly faulty, but then the validity of all these systems is suspect — when it comes down to it, what is “influence” anyway??? Finally, there’s a bigger issue with Klout – they may be measuring the wrong things entirely. Individuals alone only rarely make a difference; social media is a collective phenomenon and it is the crowd — or often the mob — that matter:
http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2011/11/klout-qwikster-and-mob-marketing.html
Thanks again, great post.
@ianrbruce Ian, that’s the best I have had anyone comment on Klout. Brilliant considerations for the future. You really have me thinking Ian. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Very valuable.
In my opinion connecting with people with a lower a lower Klout score does impact your score. It penalizes you. This is wrong. You should be rewarded for engaging with people with lesser Klout scores.
I also personally feel Klout is all geared to generating for business for Klout perks. This does compromise the integrity of what they claim they are trying to achieve.
Watch for Kred when it is released. They look like they have a better handle on things then Klout does.