Measuring Online Influence

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Archive for the ‘applications’ Category

The Most Influential SOPA Voices

Thursday, January 19th, 2012


Yesterday, we witnessed the internet go on strike with companies like Google and Wikipedia blacking out their logos or entire websites in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills in U.S. Congress. This coordinated effort resulted in a surge of engagement on SOPA-related content on Twitter. There were twice as many retweets about #sopa, #pipa, #blackoutsopa, #stopsopa, #blackout, and #factswithoutwikipedia yesterday than in the past 30 days combined.

Out of the clamor against SOPA, we found the most influential voices. Some you may recognize and some you won’t – others, you may find a bit surprising – but these ten influencers had the most reach and impact on Twitter.

Generated Using Data from Dec 1st, 2011 through 4pm PST Jan 18th 2012.

If you followed the Occupy Movement on Twitter you might have recognized groups such as @YourAnonNews and @TheNewDeal. Other familiar influencers in SOPA include Wikipedia and its co-founder Jimmy Wales. Wikipedia helped galvanize the anti-SOPA effort with a tweet heard round the world.


Retweeted 7,897 times

Jimmy Wales took a more humorous approach to announcing the Wikipedia blackout on his personal Twitter.


Retweeted 11,776 times

In the midst of SOPA protest, some new influencers emerged on the scene. David Shares had a Klout score spike, going from 34 yesterday to 63 today after he burned up Twitter with a warning:


Retweeted 16,669 times

And possibly the most surprising of them all is YouPorn, asking the Internet to save porn by stopping SOPA.


Retweeted 6,051 times

These ten influencers have had the most impact on the SOPA conversation recently and they are certainly ones to watch as the debate continues. Like many influencers in this movement, Klout believes in the power of free expression. #stopsopa

How have you been following the SOPA debate? Who has influenced you about SOPA and in what way?

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An Introduction to and Celebration of the @KloutAPI

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

The @KloutAPI is wickedly simple to work with. Recently, @Mashery made it even more straightforward. With their I/O Docs page you can now interactively run queries against the API and view the response right from your browser.

Wait. What is an API? An API is an Applications Programming Interface.  It’s basically how software and web developers use a service like Klout to integrate it with their site.  Klout uses APIs from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other networks we score to get data.  Some APIs allow you to get data, other APIs let you send data.  APIs are, in essence, a social contract between developers: I offer you this data, and you agree to these terms.

But, even the most intuitive APIs need excellent documentation, and we’re working to improve that.  Stay tuned over the next few months as we revise the portal.

In addition, we’re ramping up the public presence of our API’s potential by attending more conferences, hackathons, and driving inspiration across a multitude of use-cases. Recently, we attended the retail-API focused ReCommerce Day in Las Vegas, a hacakthon sponsored by @ZapposAPI, @Mashery, @Chargify, @EtsyAPI and others.

@rahims won the Klout Prize at ReCommerce Day for his Klout implementation in Today’s Threads (http://www.todaysthreads.com/), a LookBook/Polyvore-like app that lets a blogger identify clothes they’re wearing, and link them to be purchased by online vendors.  By using the True Reach score as part of a multiplier for affiliate commissions on fashion sales through Etsy, Zappos, and Sierra Trading Company, Rahim allowed bloggers to leverage their influence with retailers.  A short demo is available here: http://screencast.com/t/wiwe58f6GEv

This illustrates the simplicity and power of the Klout API.  Here’s how you can get started:

  1. Register for a Developer account at: http://developer.klout.com
    Developer Portal

    Developer Registration

  2. Use I/O Docs at http://developer.klout.com/iodocs to query Klout for a score.  All requests require a Twitter username. The API returns data in either JSON or XML.
  3. Build something more robust in the language of your choice! There are a number of Klout API wrappers available on GitHub, some of which are available here: http://developer.klout.com/docs/read/Profile_Request
  4. Tell us about what you made!  Follow @KloutAPI or @harmophone on Twitter.

What can you do with it? Well, given a Twitter username you can get their Klout Score, the other Klout scores like True Reach, the topics the user is influential on, and whom they influence, and whom they’re influenced by.  The implications are rather astounding: you can do some serious work with this data if you mash it up with other APIs.

Klout Score Method

Klout Score Method

If you have any questions about the Klout API, definitely visit the Developer Portal, or contact me at @harmophone.

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Optimize Social Media with Crowdbooster

Monday, August 15th, 2011

How do you choose what time to release content? How do you know who to follow and engage with? Now that everyone’s bought into social media, the focus is on how to optimize and improve your presence and returns. Crowdbooster is on the cutting edge of this trend. It tracks the content that resonates with your audience and gives you tips on how to engage most effectively.

Crowdbooster has now rolled out Klout influencer notifications. Crowdbooster will notify you immediately via the dashboard when someone with a high Klout score follows you to prompt you to either follow or give them a shout. For marketers, this is a great way to go above and beyond with your influencer engagement. This helps, but don’t forget to keep delivering your great service to everyone.

Mayka Mei, Senior Strategist at Reg Magnet Media has found that ” Finding an easy way to surface influential followers is imperative for high-profile clients. In the case of Incubus (@IncubusBand), they need recommendations on who’s a qualified follower that they should engage with, and deciding whether they should engage with that user publicly or privately. Crowdbooster helps us sift through Incubus’ almost 50K followers very easily!”

Want to try it out? Crowdbooster is still in private beta, but we’ve got 200 invites just for you! Let us know what you think.

Posted in applications, social media | View Comments

Klout Leads to More Sales

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Online marketplace Addoway gave sellers the option to add Klout Scores in April of this year. Addoway believed Klout was an important component of trust and would help improve confidence in their network, but they didn’t realize by how much. They found “sellers that display their Klout score on Addoway are 5 times more likely to make a sale than sellers that don’t.

The Klout Score is an indication of the trust your network puts in you and Addoway has shown that consumers value that trust when they’re looking to make a purchase. Fredrick Nijm, CEO of Addoway adds “Klout is valuable information because it indicates advocacy and that trusted relationships have been formed. Bringing value to eCommerce by indicating an individual’s social status will only lead to safer buying decisions, because shoppers can make more confident decisions.”

We’re excited to see Klout used more in purchasing decisions, as a valuable indicator of reputation and influence.

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Listen up – Spotify has arrived!

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

UPDATE: Wow, everyone loves Spotify! The response was overwhelming and we’re out of invites for the day. We’ll have more tomorrow so make sure to check back!

If you’ve got Klout, then you can have Spotify.

Spotify has been rocking Europeans with their music streaming service for the past few years and we’ve been mighty jealous over here at Klout HQ. Now you can listen to Spotify over the web, on your Android or Apple phones. And we’re not just talking about a limited selection of songs; Spotify has one of the biggest music libraries in the world for free, for you. Awesome.

We LOVE giving you, the influencers, the best of what’s out there, and we like to give it to you first.

We have a limited number of Spotify Free account invitations to pass out. Get yours right now. If your friends trust your influence on music and download Spotify, your account might even be upgraded to Spotify Premium.

Spotify is one of the most hotly-anticipated launches in America this year. We have been lucky enough to get a sneak preview at Klout HQ. Spotify has completely changed the way we think about music, and the way we share our favorite tunes with our friends. We know you’re going to love Spotify – now go get your invitation!

Posted in Perks, announcements, applications | View Comments

Two Billion is Cool

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

In early 2009 we launched our API before we even made Klout.com publicly available. Our goal was to unlock influence for application developers around the world. Today, we’re proud to announce that we served more than two billion API calls in the month of June. This is four times what we had just a few short months ago. We want to thank all of our 3,000+ partners-developers who have made Klout part of the fabric of the social web and the standard for measuring influence.

Gnip, Klout’s key distributor, says demand for the Klout API just continues to grow. Chris Moody, COO from Gnip, says, “It started with social media monitoring companies and PR firms. Now just about every vertical is asking us about Klout’s API. It just has so much application. Let’s put it this way, we’ll be partners for a long time.”

It’s been amazing to see all the ways that companies are leveraging the Klout API. From hotels instantly upgrading rooms at check-in to call centers routing calls appropriately and thousands of companies using integration partners like Radian 6, Seesmic, Hootsuite, CoTweet, about.me and others to provide heightened levels of customer service to key influencers. Klout has become a must have for any company dealing with support, customer loyalty, and directed offers. It makes us proud to know that with every API call an influencer is being rewarded. We can’t wait to see what innovation the next 2 billion API calls bring!

Posted in announcements, applications, measuring influence | View Comments

Klout Comes to Facebook Fan Pages

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Today, we’re proud to announce that we’re partnering with Involver to allow brands to provide customized experiences to their Facebook fans based on Klout Scores. Besides the number of fans, brands know surprisingly little about who those people are, their potential reach, and have little ability to message them individually. Now, with this partnership, brands can choose to give different offers, promotions, or messaging to fans based on their Klout. We’re excited to have Audi on board as our first partner on their Audi USA fan page.

Read the full press release below:

Klout Comes to Facebook: Brands and Agencies Can Now Engage Facebook Fans Based on Klout Scores

Involver App, built in SML™, allows brands and agencies to customize engagement, promotions, and offers to reward influential fans

SAN FRANCISCO – June 22, 2011 – Involver Inc., the web’s most trusted social marketing platform, and Klout, the standard for influence across the social web, today bring Klout to Facebook, giving brands a new way to engage with their most influential fans, and rewarding consumers based on their influence, as measured by Klout. Facebook has been largely devoid of the ability to filter how brands focus their attention. This integration marks the first time brands can engage with their fans on Facebook using the Klout scoring system.

Audi USA, the brand with the most actively engaged Facebook fans, has deployed the new Klout app to engage with its nearly 4 milion fans in a more customized and personalized way. Live now on Audi’s Facebook fan page, users will receive a customized brand experience, tailored to them based on their Klout score. On Audi’s Facebook page, fans who sign up to get their Klout Score will receive a custom digital Perk.

With this integration the Klout app is fully developed in Involver’s SML™, which means brands and agencies can incorporate a user’s Klout scores to dynamically change the content/interaction with the Involver platform applications. An agency or brand can create highly customized experiences across the spectrum of Klout scores, unlocking the ability to uniquely target connected influencers.

By partnering with Involver, Klout’s Facebook app is easily deployed to more than 400,000 brands and agencies using Involver’s platform. The Klout app is available as a free application and with progressivly more features enabled as a part of Involver’s Professional, Business, and Enterprise offerings with advanced features including deeper customization, and content control based on Klout scores.

How the Klout App Works
● A brand deploys the Klout App and configures it settings
● Once fan interacts with the application the brand is able to show different content based on users’ Klout scores. Like a “fan-gate” on steroids.
● Example: When a user above a certain threshhold interacts, they get access to special, unreleased content (a new trailer, product, coupon, etc.). That person is more likely to share it, and it’s more likely to catch on.

“We identified Klout as a skilled partner to help us recognize and identify our Facebook fans with followings and influence,” said Doug Clark, General Manager, Social Media & Customer Engagement, Audi of America whom is currently using the application “We currently have over 3,500,000 fans on Facebook and we see this as a great tool to help manage and work more directly with our fan base.”

“Facebook represents a huge opportunity for brands to connect with their fans and deliver a unique experience,” said Joe Fernancez, founder and CEO, Klout. “The real value for brands comes in being able to personalize and customize that experience based on specific attributes of individuals. Involver helped us make Klout scores actionable for brands and agencies on the most influential social platform out there.”

“The new Klout app is particularly exciting for us because of the deep customization and personalization around fan engagement,” said Rahim Fazal, CEO and Co-Founder, Involver. “Brands like Audi have massive followings, and the logical next step is to empower those brands and their agencies to engage with their fans in specific, highly personalized ways.”

The Klout app is now available directly from Klout and Involver.

About Involver
Involver is the solution of choice for the world’s biggest brands trying to connect with customers on social networks. Over 400,000 brands and agencies — including Nike, Facebook, Cisco, and the NFL — use Involver to power their marketing efforts to a combined audience of over a billion relationships.

Involver pioneered the first social app suite on Facebook and is now leading the industry with SML (Social Markup Language), allowing front-end developers to achieve pixel-perfect application development. Involver’s Audience Management Platform acts as a marketer’s system of record, bringing everything from app management and wall response/moderation to publishing updates and analytics into a single intuitive interface.

Involver is a Facebook Preferred Developer and a technology provider for Facebook’s internal marketing team, with applications like the Involver Leaderboard and Stories. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA with Offices in Austin, TX and New York, NY Involver was founded in 2007 and investors include Bessemer Ventures, Cervin Ventures and WTI. Learn more at www.involver.com.

If you are interested in a similar integration for your fan page, please email partners@klout.com. Note that this is not a way of measuring the Klout Score of your page, but a way to engage with your fans based on their score. Thanks!

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About.me Integrates Klout

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

About.me allows people to create a custom profile to act as their online hub. As the emerging standard for influence, Klout is a natural fit for about.me users who are looking to understand and grow their influence. About.me helps over 750,000 users express their identity and Klout gives them the tools and understanding they need to promote it.

With this new integration, about.me users can now access their Klout stats in the “More Data” tab when logged into about.me. You can expect about.me will have even more interesting Klout integrations in the future.

If you have yet to check it out, head to about.me to create a profile.

Do you use about.me? How else would you like to see Klout integrated with them?

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Find Your Influential Followers with Postling

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Today Postling announced their new Suggestions feature to help small businesses become more efficient on social media. Postling has partnered with Klout to allow business owners to get alerts when they have new influential followers. As they say, “While it’d be ideal if you could say hi to every new follower, we know that you’re too busy. The smart compromise is to focus on the ones who carry the most influence, because those people are the ones who can make the most impact if you can convert them into vocal supporters.”

We’re excited to be partnering with innovative companies like Postling who come up with new ways to use the Klout Score to make life easier for businesses and people alike. Check out their new feature (I definitely will) and let us know what you think in the comments. You can also read about Postling Suggestions on TechCrunch.

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Revinate Brings Klout to the Hotel Business

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Word of mouth is essential for hotels. One bad review or mention can turn people off, and a good one can bring in new business. This is why Revinate, an enterprise-grade social media solution for hotels, has now integrated Klout as their standard influence metric.

Understanding influence allows hotels to concentrate their efforts on their most influential customers as well as understand the reach of their mentions online. Hotels can offer upgrades or complimentary items to top influencers as well as make sure to thank them for their stay. Increasingly, hotels are aware that they need to consider the value of a customer, not just in their lifetime spend, but in their ability to bring in new customers.

What ways have you seen Hotels use Klout Scores? Do you think this will change the way they do business or the way you interact with hotels online?

Posted in applications, social media | View Comments