My Beef With Klout

I’ve been playing around with Klout, a social media metrics tool, for a few weeks now. I mostly like it, but there’s one thing that I haven’t quite got my mind wrapped around yet. That is, namely, the “Influencers” metric.

I know what it is. I know what it’s supposed to do. It doesn’t work.

What I DO Like About Klout

Klout is a tool that aggregates your influence among three popular social networks – Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It does that pretty well, actually, and I’m quite impressed. However, I think it is more heavily weighted toward Twitter than the other two networks.

I say it is more heavily weighted toward Twitter because that is the service I’m most active on. When I spend a day away from Twitter, my Klout score drops – even if I’m active on Facebook. If I’m less active on Facebook and more active on Twitter, then my score goes up.

Of course, this could happen because of the weight given to certain actions on each network. It could be that you get more Klout when you retweet something than when you Like something, though I don’t know why that would be the case. Or it could be that posting to Twitter has more value than Liking something on Facebook, which does make sense. And those are the two activities that I engage in most.

There are certain things I don’t use Facebook for, but that I do use Twitter for. For instance, I post more Internet marketing links on Twitter than I do Facebook. I use Facebook mostly for literary and political messages. This dichotomy could be why Klout hasn’t registered me as most influential on any particular topics.

Who Are My Influencers?

Klout allows me to add my own influencers, however, it only lets me add people from Twitter. I’ve tried looking for influencers on Facebook and can’t find any. I don’t know if it’s because the people who are most influential to me on Facebook aren’t using Klout or if it’s just because Klout doesn’t use that information from Facebook. Either way, I’m disappointed.

Here’s the way I think that tool should work: Whenever I Like something on Facebook or retweet something on Twitter, then Klout should automatically boost that user’s influence score on my Klout profile. That way, I’d have top influencers automatically added to that metric on Klout. I wouldn’t need to manually enter my own influencers, though that could be an option.

Something Else I Think Klout Should Allow

I have two Twitter accounts. On one, I post information about Internet marketing, social media, and some lighthearted humor. On the other, I post only information related to literature. The first one is my personal account. The second one is my branded account for a poetry website I own. I rarely cross-post on the two, but when I do it’s on a literary topic that I think my followers on the personal account might enjoy. Here’s what I’d like to see Klout do:

Allow me to measure both accounts through one Klout account. As is, I’d have to have two Klout accounts – one to measure my influence for my personal Twitter account and the other for my poetry Twitter account.

To further complicate matters, I NEVER post literary links or information about poetry or literature to LinkedIn. Nor do I share information on poltiical topics. I do post those links on Facebook, and I do post them on my literary Twitter stream and sometimes even on my personal Twitter stream. I wish Klout would take all of that into account.

The Nice And Tidy Klout Wrapup

As is, Klout is not a perfect social metric, but I do think it is better than most that I’ve seen. Do you have beefs with Klout? Do you know of any other social media metric tools that are comparable to or better than Klout? If so, please respond with your comments.