What is Klout all about?

Do you want to talk to everyone or jump to the front of the queue and go straight to the influencers? You know, the people who already have a big reach with an interested and engaged audience. It appears to be the new holy grail for Marketers, Sales people, Politicians, Brands and many more.  

There are a few companies who "measure influence". The one I've heard of and used the most is Klout, but mainly due to it being bundled in with Hootsuite (Which I adore and use daily). Plus they have the old "Whats in it for me" issue worked out with giving Klout Perks to people with high Klout scores. Although my "Klout Perks" have politely been worth the square route of nothing so far!

I fall in  and out of love with using Klout, currently out! They changed an algorithm and lots of peoples scores crash. Adding multiple social networks doesn't seem to make a jot of difference! I also don't like that that they don't measure blogs or LinkedIn Groups etc. But maybe the biggest reason is, I recently went on holiday, unplugged for a week and my Klout score just dropped through the floor.

“So what?” you’re thinking. “I don’t have an account, so I’m not on the radar, right?” Wrong. If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, you have a Klout score and anyone with a Klout account can look it up. (Which is quoted from here.)

A few brands are using Klout in campaigns... I read of one campaign around a fashion week (I think in the states), where the agency ran a competition to allow people with influence (High Klout) a ticket to a free glitzy party. They picked a good sounding/high number like 60 or 70 but Klout actually had to explain that such a few people attain that high a number and gently persuaded them that 40 was actually a very good! It did push people with lower scores to start engaging (gaming the system) to increase their scores to grab a free ticket.

Or here's a discount with Gilt based on Klout Score http://blog.compete.com/2012/03/13/gilt-looks-to-score-sales-from-klout-promotion/

Klout is just one of many influence measuring sites that you can log in with facebook or twitter. There is Kred, PeerIndex and I'm sure others. They are really easy to set up (Just log in with twitter or Facebook) as shown here with mine. http://kred.com/danieldoherty which seems to give points for every interaction so goes into more detail. Plus I have met their CEO Andrew Grill who is a thoroughly nice guy.
http://www.peerindex.com/danieldoherty I have listened to some one pitching Peerindex too.

Once people realise not to take all this too seriously they will really enjoy Klouchebag - 

Klouchebag measures how much of an asshat you are on Twitter. 

Seriously if people start to annoy you with Klout invite send them to Klouchebag, I think it's genius!

So these thoughts came because I saw this tweet by ‏@BrennerMichael The Clout of Klout http://goo.gl/b4Sda via @candacemountain 

I.E. blog http://blog.candacemountain.com/?p=380 and I felt I had to reply.  Which probably proves this lady Laura was right when she tweeted this (to me last week)...

@tentontroll486/4486/4486/4 Isn't this Klout obsession a bit OTT? RT @danieldoherty: How to Cheat at Klout via Social Media Today at me last week.

I have to give Kred some Kred.

I have to give credit where it's due. This started of as a reply to a blog about Klout, but after watching this video and signing upto Kred (For this post) I am really starting to like Kred and I love the widgets they offer (there are lots) I just used the biggest one I could find below. 
I just downloaded the chrome browser so I'll see how that does, plus noticed they take into account blogs, linkedIn group and can add offline achievements to your profile too. I will be playing with Kred more now I've gone off Klout. Now if I could just integrate with @Hootsuite Andrew I'd be delighted. 

All the best, @Daniel838/6 Doherty