The Official Klout Blog

Archive for October, 2011

A More Accurate, Transparent Klout Score

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Today we’re releasing a new scoring model with insights to help you understand changes in your influence. This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history. Joe shared the full vision behind these changes in his post last week.

Influence is the ability to drive action and is based on quality, not quantity. When someone engages with your content, we assess that action in the context of the person’s own activity. These principles form the basis of our PeopleRank algorithm which determines your Score based on:

how many people you influence,
how much you influence them and
how influential they are.

We analyze 2.7 billion pieces of content and connections daily. Reaching this scale, we’ve introduced significant upgrades to our platform, allowing us to handle this explosive growth. Now, we can add more networks and other sources of your influence much, much faster.

Insights help you understand why your Score changed. Each day, you can see which subscore and people in your network caused that change. You can also view insights on your friends’ profiles.

These changes are a significant milestone in the Klout Score’s evolution and you can continue to expect more improvements in the future. As always, your opinion is very important to us and we’d love to hear your feedback.

How will this affect my Score?

A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop. In fact, some of our Scores here at the Klout HQ will drop — our goal is accuracy above all else. We believe our users will be pleased with the improvements we’ve made. Below is a distribution of the Score changes. You’ll note large decreases in Score are rare.

Posted in announcements, engineering, measuring influence | 1,901 Comments »

Klout Star: Scott Kleinberg

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About Scott: Scott Kleinberg lives life in 140 characters or less. As social media consultant for the Chicago Tribune Media Group, his days are packed with all kinds of online goodness, but he especially enjoys focusing on the role of social networks in breaking news as well as meaningful and entertaining engagement and conversation. It’s better to ask Scott which social networks he’s not on, because the list is pretty extensive. Follow Scott on Twitter at @scottkleinberg. You can also find him on Facebook and Quora. And if you’re really good, he’ll let you follow him on Foursquare.

1. How did you get started in social media?

It began in 2007 when my iPhone blog was exploding. I needed a way to curate questions and keep people informed about the latest iPhone updates. That’s how @iptib was born, but soon I was hooked on how cool tweeting was. I realized everything I tweeted didn’t have to be iPhone related, so I created @scottkleinberg and found my rhythm. Eventually the iPhone blog ran its course and I migrated everything over to @scottkleinberg. In 2008, I was working at RedEye, the Chicago Tribune’s tabloid edition for young urban professionals, when I saw other media outlets trying to stake their claim on Twitter. Most didn’t really know what they were supposed to do, but then it hit me. RedEye’s audience of nontraditional newspaper readers was special. These were the early adopters embracing social media in a big way, so I conceived, created and launched RedEye’s entire social media campaign, starting @redeyechicago in 2008. To this day, it’s one of the most fun places to be online in Chicago. I left there for my current job at the Tribune in early September of this year, but not before building a network of just shy of 40,000 highly-engaged friends – I never call them followers.

2. What’s your strategy for the content you produce and share on social media?

Variety is the spice of life, so I’m always thinking about the kinds of things I find interesting online. While I have my favorites (Apple, photography, etc.,) I really enjoy a little of everything. So that’s how I approach my social media content and curation, but I’m careful to not repeat too much on different platforms. I know each place has a different audience, but I want to give people a reason to follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Also, I make the most of each of my 140 characters. As long as the subject matter allows, my tweets are written in a fun way – perfectly sized and ready for retweeting. And while I like posting content from the Chicago Tribune because it’s where I work, I search far and wide for the things I share. I also realize that sometimes a fun cartoon on Facebook can provide a much-needed afternoon boost. I take each day as it comes and just try to have fun.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their social media influence and presence to the next level?

Above all else, remember these words: Social media has to be social. Contrary to what I’ve heard from all over the social media universe – even among my circle of friends – there is no such thing as a social media platform that serves solely as a loudspeaker. There are opportunities everywhere to engage with your audience and you need to do that to stand out from the crowd. That means no automatic direct messages when someone follows you on Twitter. (Please!) Take 30 seconds and thank that person in real time with a personal message. First impressions mean everything. Be passionate, be real and be yourself, and you’ll go far. Let Follow Friday love shower the people who engage with you most. Oh, and make sure you check Klout every day and give lots of +K.

If you’d like to hear more from Scott, you can follow him as @scottkleinberg on Twitter.

Let us know what you think of our Klout Star! If you’d like to be considered for a future Klout Stars post about your influence please email contact@klout.com.

Posted in klout stars | 10 Comments »

Forbes’ Most Powerful Women with Klout

Friday, October 21st, 2011

Forbes recently published a list of the 100 Most Powerful Women that includes leaders from the political, media, entertainment, non-profit, and business worlds. No doubt these women have a lot of clout in their respective industries, but how does that translate to online influence?

Well, Lady Gaga has both the highest (relative) Forbes ranking and the highest Klout score. Gaga’s digital influence comes as no surprise. Beginning with MySpace and then moving to Facebook, Twitter, and even Farmville, Gaga has embraced all forms of social media. She takes pride in personally connecting with her “little monsters” which encourages her fans to engage and respond online. That, however, seems to be where any correlation between Forbes ranking and Klout score ends.

The Forbes women are leading humanitarian efforts, developing game-changing products, and creating content that reach millions. We think it’s commendable that in addition to all their work, the top ten women on our Klout list spend time engaging with their community through social media. For that we’d like to give +K in shaping the world both off and online.

Posted in influencers | 30 Comments »

Your Klout Can Earn You a New Phone

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

We’re excited to announce that Microsoft is giving away 500 new Windows Phones through Klout Perks! This Perk starts today with 100 influencers in New York City who will get a chance to play with the lastest Windows Phone release. On top of that, they get VIP passes to an exclusive launch event with a special performance by Matt & Kim! Soon after, this promotion will continue in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

“These events are going to be off the hook” said Molly O’Donnell, Director of Influencer Marketing for Windows Phone. She followed by saying “Our strategic partnership with Klout is proof that Windows Phone understands it takes a community to give your brand, well… Klout! Which is why we wanted to give Klout Perks members the chance to experience the phones for themselves to see all the cool and innovative ways that Windows Phone puts people first.”

Top influencers are trusted by their audience to share their real opinions and more and more brands are recognizing this power. Klout Perks is quickly becoming the best way to launch new products. The latest release of Windows Phone is the most exciting yet and we can’t wait to hear what our influencers think. Check out this Klout Perk and see if you qualify!

Posted in Perks | 152 Comments »

Designing Perks

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

When we set out to give influencers Perks, we wanted an exclusive experience where the user felt like they were getting something special. It started with individual Perks landing pages, and some exploration of the platform. It has now evolved into a cleaner, more focused version of Perks, one that’s tightly integrated into the Klout.com experience. Our design team is working hard, and as always, we are continually improving the design and usability of our site, so be on the lookout for updates and upgrades to the Perks system!

The improvements to Perks aren’t just limited to the website. We’ve also been focusing on the way people receive their Perks. We wanted the packaging to reflect the same exclusivity and excitement we strive for throughout the Perks experience. So along with our new Perks logo, we designed and developed stunning new Klout Perks boxes. Designed in the signature Klout Orange with a snazzy bright blue interior, they have some fun little notes on the inside too.

So keep your eyes peeled for the orange box, and next time you get a Perk let us know what you think!

Posted in design, Perks | 32 Comments »

A New Era for Klout Scores

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

More than three years ago the Klout Score was born in my bedroom in New York City as a way to make sense of the noise I was seeing in social media. I could share my opinion about anything, instantly, with the people who trust me and the data was available to measure my impact. Fast forward to today and we now have over 3,500 companies using the Klout Score to reward influencers with Klout Perks, give better customer service, reward loyalty, recruit, and much more.

The biggest change in the past three years is that (thankfully) we have people way smarter than me spending each and every day improving the algorithms that calculate the Klout Score. I am incredibly proud of the work the team has done and I am excited to announce the biggest improvement to the Klout Score in our history is launching next week.

People Rank
We’ve often thought of what we’re doing as a form of PeopleRank and this is a giant step in that direction. We’ve improved the stability and accuracy of our scores. Furthermore, our subscores have always been an important part of Klout. This update will make them more clear and make changes easier to understand.

True Reach
True Reach is the number of people you influence. It is a real number of people we find by looking at the impact you have on your connections. We analyze over two and a half billion connections and pieces of content every day in order to accurately gauge who is in your true reach.

Amplification
Amplification is how much you influence these people. We analyze how many people in your potential audience act upon your content. We take this a step further and understand what an influence signal means in the context of that person. For instance, if I rarely like or comment on anyone’s posts, but choose to do so to yours, that is more meaningful than if I like 60 posts a day. Amplification indicates the effect you have on your audience.

Network Impact
Network Impact is the influence of your audience. This is on a 1 to 100 scale and indicates the influence level of people who engage with your content. It’s not just about how many people you reach, it’s about getting your message to the right people. Having more connections won’t help your Network Impact, but having influential connections will.

Accuracy & Transparency
The subscores contribute to one overall score, the Klout Score. We’ve always been transparent about the various activities that could impact your Klout Score but we now have the power to share the specific actions that are helping or hurting your score. When your Klout Score changes you will be able to match it to a corresponding change in one of these subscores and understand why the change has occurred. If your Score goes up because more top influencers are acting upon your content, we will share that with you.

Influence is the Ability to Drive Action
The core premise behind our algorithms has always been that influence is the ability to drive action. We have tightened this concept even further in this release. You are not more influential because you tweet or use Facebook more, you are influential because you have an influential audience engaging with your content.

The Standard for Influence
With thousands of companies and millions of people leveraging the Klout Score, we take our role as the standard for measuring influence incredibly seriously. We are very early in what we view as a long journey. The team here at Klout is thrilled about the challenge ahead of us and are completely dedicated to creating the most accurate measurement of influence in the world. To that end, you can expect the way we measure influence to continue to evolve as behaviors change on the social web or as new networks like Google+ emerge. The majority of the time these changes will be incremental and invisible to most people, but this world changes fast and occasionally you can expect us to make significant changes like the one we are launching next week.

And of course, I know you want to know…

How will this affect my Score?
A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop. Some of our Scores here at the Klout HQ will drop (including mine) — our goal is accuracy above all else. We believe our users will be pleased with the improvements we’ve made.

This is a project that’s been under development for over three months, and, in many ways, over the three years since Klout started. We appreciate your trust and support and we can’t wait to hear what you think. We will let you know when this new model goes live next week and will continue to work to provide the deepest and most accurate insights into your influence possible.

Posted in announcements, engineering, measuring influence | 358 Comments »

Klout Star: Michael Brandvold

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About Michael: Michael Brandvold is a freelance music industry consultant based in Northern California. Having launched Michael Brandvold Marketing to leverage his years of experience to provide direction to large and small clients in the areas of online & social marketing as well as e-commerce and customer acquisition and retention. Michael has also managed the online efforts for KISS, Greg Kihn, Motley Crüe, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, Madonna and Britney Spears to name only a few.

We asked…

1. How did you get started in social media?

I got started in social media before that term even existed. In 1998 I was hired to build and manage KISSonline.com, the official website for KISS. From the beginning I wanted the fans deeply involved with the site and this meant developing techniques, tools and content that allowed for the fans to engage with each other, and for the band to engage with the fans through the website. I have taken that experience and applied it to everything moving forward. Social media is simply talking and listening to your fans or customers. More than anything they want to know they are being heard. Social media has always existed, but today sites such as Facebook and Twitter make it much easier to accomplish and manage.

2. What’s your strategy for the content you produce and share on social media?

I always put myself in the shoes of the user, the fan, the customer. Remembering what it is they are looking for, what they want to read about, the simple problems they want solved. And most importantly, what would it take for me to pull out my credit card and buy something or give someone my email address. If something is too complicated for me to deal
with, it will surely be above the heads of the average user. I may have worked with KISS, but the KISS principle is important… Keep It Simple Stupid. I like to deliver content that is easy to digest. Content that applies directly to a real problem or concern. Content that is easy to act upon. Don’t speak above the customer, speak to them.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their social media influence and presence to the next level?

I have six suggestions: Best advice I could give is do what you love, be passionate about what you do, and stick to what you believe in. I feel influence comes when others see you really believe in what you are talking about. As you get more influential you will find more people who don’t agree with you, that is fine, but you need to have the passion to stand up for what you say. I have always loved the George Bernard Shaw quote, The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

If you’d like to hear more from Michael, you can follow him at @michaelsb on Twitter.

Let us know what you think of our Klout Star! If you’d like to be considered for a future Klout Stars post about your influence please email contact@klout.com.

Posted in klout stars | 14 Comments »

10 Most Influential Chefs

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

This week we take a look at the ten most influential chefs. As tastemakers within the food industry, these chefs influence everyone from expert restauranteurs to the casual cook at home.

There have been some changes in the rankings since we measured last spring. Andrew Zimmern remains the most influential chef but there are three newcomers. At number seven is Mark Bittman who often tweets his favorite recipes. Jay Terauchi, who blogs about his food adventures, comes close behind. Finally in ninth place, Mario Batali responds directly to his fans’ questions on how to pair ingredients or what restaurant to try.

So if you’re looking for a new burger joint or just want some tips to pump up your pesto, check out these top chefs.

Posted in influencers | 49 Comments »

Klout Star: Katrina Hill

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About Katrina: Katrina Hill is, first and foremost, a lover of all things action. Since a young age she has been in love with the action genre, and has been influence by action stars both new and old, from Stallone and Schwarzeneggar to Statham and Butler, and even independent action stars such as Tony Jaa. Katrina Hill covers movie news and reviews on her website, www.actionflickchick.com, and writes freelance for other publications such as MTV geek and Newsarama. She has over 120,000 followers on twitter (@actionchick) and has given panel presentations in front of thousands at San Diego Comic-Con International.

We asked…

1. How did you get started in social media?

I first decided to start my website, actionflickchick.com, about 3 years ago because I had watched Rambo IV and was completely blown away by the action. I wanted to find some way to talk how awesome it was and decided to start a website where I talk about action first and foremost. That led to a slew of other things like youtube movie reviews and skits and being named G4TV’s Next Woman of the Web. I signed up for twitter and Facebook as a means to make connections with people and also as a way to distribute my work. Over the past 3 years I gained over 120,000 followers on twitter and have been hovering at close to the maximum number of friends on Facebook.

2. What’s your strategy for the content you produce and share on social media?

The things I am known for are talking about action, horror, and nerdy things as well as convention news. So, on twitter and Facebook, I try to think of fun questions in those areas that I feel people have wondered often or would just be a fun discussion topic. For example, “What would you do if bitten by a zombie?” I also pose questions about the relevant issues going on, like DC Comics’ New 52. This allows followers to voice their opinion and hear what a lot of others think about the topics as well, often leading to intriguing conversations. The answers to those questions also get compiled into one post on my website for everyone to read.
As for my website content, I post things that are all about action first, trying to remind people why action movies are so much fun and to inform the readers on what they can look forward to and whether or not some movie is worth watching or not. Then I just keep my eyes peeled for whatever hot, interesting things are being talked about and do my best to inform people about those.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their social media influence and presence to the next level?
Interact with people! Make friends and acquaintances from your contacts in social media. That will potentially lead to new awesome opportunities and new friends!
Also, stick to things you know and love. Your passion will shine through and attract more readers, and it will form a niche where you can be a known expert on that topic.

If you’d like to hear more from Katrina, you can follow her at @ActionChick on Twitter.

Let us know what you think of our Klout Star! If you’d like to be considered for a future Klout Stars post about your influence please email contact@klout.com.

Posted in klout stars | 15 Comments »