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Our mission here at Klout is to help you understand and leverage your influence. As we add more networks we can more accurately measure your influence. Today, we are excited to announce that Google+ is now a part of the Klout Score!

Since users started connecting their Google+ to Klout in late September, we have been hard at work building a model for G+ influence. With its explosive growth and innovative features, it’s a notable addition to the Klout score.  From the get-go, Google+ came with circles, which set boundaries for shared content.  As on Facebook, you can Like content from other users (called a “+1”) and comment on it. People validate your content by +1’ing it.  They can also Reshare it — which will spread it further through your own circles as well as spreading it to their own. Since it launched, Google+ has seen early adopters crossing over from Twitter and Facebook, especially in the tech industry.  The Reshare, which is in some ways similar to a Retweet, allows Google+ users to comment and discuss topics of interest similarly to Facebook, while having an immediacy of Twitter.

We are currently measuring influence for users who have already connected their Google+ accounts to Klout. Of those users, 62% are active on Google+ and therefore should see it affect their Score based on their ability to drive action on that platform.

Google+ and your Score

If you are active on Google+ and have connected your Google+ account to Klout, you will see a Score increase. Regardless of activity level, no user with Google+ connected will see a Score drop. Similarly, we do not penalize users who do not connect Google+ accounts. We measure influence on Google+ by analyzing public posts.

Distribution of Google+ Influence

The graph below shows the distribution for active users before and after adding Google+ to their Scores. In the graph below, the x-axis shows ranges of Scores. You’ll note that users active on Google+ tend to have scores between 30 and 60, which is much higher than our overall average Score of 20.

The median Score change for active connected users is 0.4742 and the mean Score change is 2.1577. We did see some users who have really embraced Google+ as a platform saw Score jumps of up 40+ points.

Comparing Google+ to Twitter and Facebook

Google+ has a hybrid of characteristics from both Twitter and Facebook. Facebook tends to be a tightly connected network, where users are connected to each other based on mutual agreement. You can connect to someone on Facebook only if they have accepted your friend request or vice versa. Twitter is a more loosely connected network because it is possible for you to be connected to someone whom you may not know. For example, you may follow Barack Obama, though he does not know you personally or follow your tweets. Google+ incorporates elements of both models with the use of circles, and is therefore more tightly connected than Twitter, but not as tightly connected as Facebook.

We compared the behavior of users on Google+ based on their other connected networks. The first plot shows how the distribution changed for users who are active on Twitter and Google+ only, the second shows the same for users who are active on Facebook and Google+ only, and the third shows the same for users who are active on all three networks. The last (with all three connected) is the largest group. One observation from these plots is that most active Google+ users are also active on Twitter and Facebook, which is why most users fall in the 30 – 60 Score range, and why you see a smaller change in the last distribution.

Comparing Social Actions on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Key similarities:

• A comment, like or +1 on either Facebook or Google+ is a sign of engagement between the user who posted the content and the user who commented / liked / +1ed it.
• A +1 on Google+ is similar to a like on Facebook, in the sense that both are validation mechanisms for “approval” of content.
• A Reshare on Facebook or Google+ or a Retweet on Twitter both propagate the original content to a wider audience.

Salient differences:

• A comment or a Like on Facebook may cause your content to appear in the news feed of mutual friends. On Google+ a comment or +1 surfaces your content not just to mutual friends but to anyone who has added you to their circles.
• +1s on Google+ may also cause your content to appear in Google search results.
• Due to the larger size of the network, a Retweet on Twitter may propagate your content to a wider audience than a Reshare on Google+ or Facebook. On the other hand, a Reshare on Google+ or Facebook may help you engage with an active audience, even if the size of the audience is smaller.

As part of the process of building this scoring model, we found comparisons with other networks helpful, but ultimately we look at each network holistically to create a scoring model.

Google+ Stars

We took a closer look at the “movers and shakers” on Google+ whose Scores increased significantly in this release. There are two interesting categories whose Score went up:

• New Voices: Users who “jumped” on Google+ and found their voice there.  Their Score was low to begin with, and we see some impressive rises here.
• Growing Influencers: Users who were already influential on other networks, who increased their engagement through Google+

New Voices

Erica Joy (G+ account) works at Google TV and her Klout Score had risen by a whopping 62 points! She shares content predominately about politics and food, getting lots of engagement from her audience.

Tamara Pruessner (G+ account) is a nature photographer and uses Google+ to showcase her photos. She’s found an engaged audience who follows her work and that’s increased her Score from 11 to 67.

Growing Influencers

Thomas Hawk (G+ account) is a photographer, regularly appearing on http://www.thisweekinphoto.com/.  He uses Google+’s excellent photo-sharing features which allow viewers to see all photos from posts conveniently. He is also an advocate of Google+ and connects photographers to the community.  An already high Klout score of 69 rose to an amazing 82.

Tom Anderson (G+ account) is the founder of MySpace.  He is “happily retired” and a power social media user. He took to Google+ with gusto, as many early technology adopters. He discusses topics such as gadgets and modern art, generating many comments from his numerous followers — he’s been added to circles more than 400,000 times!  Tom’s Klout Score has increased from 64 to 77.

Jason Calacanis (G+ account) is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and writer.  He shares a lot of photos about political issues, as well as posting about his startup activity, new apps, and related events.  Like Thomas Hawk, he runs a This Week show — but for startups instead of photography. His Score jumped by 11 points.

The same trends are reflected among folks at Klout. Out of about 50 people, only 4 saw a bump. For instance, Megan Berry (G+ account) rose by 3 points, while Derek Wollenstein (G+ account) rose by almost 4 points, proving that being a tech guy pays on Google+, even if you only talk politics there!

In summary:

• Active Google+ users on Klout will see an average Score increase of 2.177.
• Active Google+ users tend to also be active on Facebook and Twitter.
• Google+ allows for close interactions like Facebook, while retaining the ability to share widely like Twitter.
• Users who see a big jump in score from Google+ generate a lot of discussion and engagement with focused, high-quality content.

We’re excited to add Google+ as the latest of our networks and would love to hear your feedback. Also, check out our own Google+ page!

Update 11/30: We recently resolved an issue with G+ data collection and have updated accounts that were affected. Today, some users will see an increase and some users will see a decrease as we take into account the new data and the distribution changes. Active Google+ users on Klout will see an average Score increase of 2.1636.

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Today we’re excited to announce Google+ is now integrated into Klout. As the fastest growing social media destination of all time, Google+ quickly became a highly requested feature. With it’s intuitive handling of privacy and sharing – bridging the public/private divide – it’s captured our attention from the start.

Google+’s unique social controls allow for unique engagement and amplification:

• Users can tailor their content to a specific audience or open it up to the public.
• The scale of in-line discussions Google+ makes possible is unprecedented and a powerful way to influence others.
• As the market leader in search, Google has also integrated public posts into their search results, expanding the audience of content creators and their potential influence.

We’ve seen people using the service as a blog replacement, a user feedback system and, of course, to post pictures of their cats. In all of these cases, we’re interested in measuring your ability to drive action: getting added to circles won’t increase your Klout score but getting comments and +1’s on your posts from influential users certainly will.

You can connect your Google+ account from the dashboard right now and you’ll be among the first to have it integrated into your Score.

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Most people immediately reference the Klout Score, our 1-100 rating of a person’s overall influence online, when they think about Klout. As a single number, the Klout Score is useful in making quick judgments and ranking overall influence.

But users are more than a single number, and Klout’s more than just a score. That’s why we’re excited to launch our Topic Pages beta to a wider preview audience today.

Klout’s Topic Pages aim to provide more context about a topic: we present top influencers in a given topic, regardless of their overall Klout score. Pages showcase topical content that recently influenced others, surface top +K recipients, and that’s just the beginning — we plan to add further analytics, trends, and related content over the coming months.

The preview is now open to all users who opted into the Topic Page perk last month. Check back soon if you’re still waiting — we’re letting more people in every day. (And a tweet can’t hurt your chances).

We’ve received positive reactions from select users who previewed Topic pages earlier, and we’re excited to expand that group now. Please leave your feedback and what else you’d like to see in the comments below!

Q&A:

Q: How do I browse topic pages? How do I know I have access?
You’ll receive a notification when you’re added to the preview. Topic pages can be accessed by clicking through any topic link on the site, such as from someone’s topic page. We plan to add more discovery and search options in the future.

Q: How do you determine top influencers and content for a topic?
Top influencers are determined based on interactions and engagement from other topical influencers on content relating to a specific topic. Likewise, we curate topical content based on the engaging influencers, and their interaction with the topical content.

Q: Who can see topic pages?
Topic pages are open to users who opted into the Topic page preview perk last month. We’ll continue to let more users into the preview over the next few weeks.

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Today, I am excited to announce that 100 million people now have Klout Scores. While this is an exciting metric for our team, I think it’s important to recognize the broader implications of this milestone. One hundred million people with Klout Scores means that there are 100 million voices effectively leveraging the social web to share their opinions, hopes and dreams and shaping the decisions of the billions of people now listening to them.

If you look back at the last 100 years of mass communication, you can begin to truly appreciate the implications of this diffusion of influence – from corporations and the media elite to the masses. Just this year we have seen this power play out in revolutions around the world fueled by individuals leveraging their influence on the social web to change history. Increasing numbers of people are finding their voices online and, as a result, we are now adding millions of influencers to our index every few days.

We believe that every person who creates content online has influence. Our goal is to understand what they are influential about and who they are influencing. The technical challenge of collecting and analyzing this data every single day is staggering. However, knowing that we are helping discover the impact of every person in the world leaves us with no shortage of motivation.

The 100 million influencers that Klout recognizes come from across 10 networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. In the coming months you will see Klout continue to add more networks. We intend to find influence wherever it exists. We also will be releasing some features to help these influencers better understand their Klout Scores, how they can be even more influential and the topics they have the biggest impact on. Giving influencers the tools they need to understand and maximize their influence is something we are very passionate about.

We love that the internet has enabled 100 million people to share their thoughts and opinions to shape the decisions of the world and we can’t wait to announce our growth to one billion influencers.