Are you a fan of Klout?
Perhaps, like me, you’re a skeptic. Perhaps you’ve heard of Klout, but don’t really know how it works. Perhaps you use Klout, but don’t know much about it. Perhaps you want to use Klout, need more information, but are trapped under something heavy.
Boy, have we got the infographic for you.
Everyone has influence, and Klout has made it their mission to tell each of us what that is. They accomplish this by using data from your social networks to gauge your Klout Score, which is a number between 1 and 100. The average Klout score is actually 20, so anything above this means you have more Klout than your common or garden social networker. And as your score increases, it becomes exponentially harder to increase your Klout.
Why would you want to do this? Well, that’s the $64,000 question. Cynics say that your Klout score only really matters to other Klout users, but folks who boast a high number can receive all manner of perks and freebies (although that’s mostly limited to those lucky folks in Silicon Valley the U.S.). Everybody likes perks and freebies, so many people try really hard to boost their score, which makes them more attractive to perk-providing brands, plus anyone impressed by a high Klout number, who the brands hope to target. Rinse and repeat.
Yeah, it’s all one big circle jerk. But however you feel – and I hope I haven’t influenced you in any way – knowledge is power, so this infographic might help to pull the curtain away from exactly what it is that they do to calculate your Klout score. Whether that makes the service any more valuable is something that you will have to decide. But I will say this: any system that determines that a 17-year old Canadian teenybopper has more online credibility than the political leader of the free world needs to be taken with a very hefty pinch.
And me? My Klout score says I’m more influential than Pepsi. In your face, sugar water. In your face.
(Source: TheDegree360.com.)
