A Beginner’s Guide to Klout

Klout is one of the latest social media platforms quickly gaining in popularity, and it’s useful to determine your online influence. It assigns a numerical score to your sphere of influence and compiles a neat profile of your online persona, including which topics you’re influential about, who influences you, etc. Here’s why Klout is important: you’re on Klout if you’re using social media, even if you never registered at klout.com.  So why not understand your score, range and circle of influence and be in control of it! Manage your Klout score and use it to build your brand!

Since Klout is relatively new for many people, here’s 5 quick tips to help you understand Klout. Consider this your Klout 101:

1. You have Klout in different categories, it just depends on your online conversations. These categories can change depending on what you’ve been online chatting about. For the most part my topics have been pretty accurate. I must admit, every now and then a strange category creeps in – my profile shows me having Klout about the Pittsburgh Penguins – huh?!
2. You can show your appreciation and give influential people some Klout, also known as +K. Haven’t you seen those tweets/Facebook posts that say something like “I just gave so and so +K on social media…”  – now you what they’re talking about. Ever wondered how to do this? On klout.com, go to the ‘Friends’ tab, then perform a search for a person’s username. Where it lists their “influential about”, click “see all” and you’ll view all the categories. Form here you can click a topic to give a +K. Then you can brag about it as a post on Twitter or Facebook, so it’s super easy to let that person know you gave them Klout. Here’s a screenshot to get you started with +K (don’ want you to get lost):
3. You may give Klout (+K) 5 times a day. Most of us do not do this 5 times everyday, but a +K shout out is always nice and appreciated. I try to give +K a few times a week.
4. Klout helps you understand your circle of influence. Your profile includes users who influence you, and you can manually add to this list. You can also see who you influence, which is always interesting. Wouldn’t you like to get a picture of your online circle of influence?
5. You can earn perks for having Klout – I just received a free Spotify account!

As of the date of this post, you can compile a Klout score based on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare. However, be on the lookout because they will be incorporating additional platforms like Google+, YouTube, and Facebook Fan Pages in the near future.

Now that you’ve learned the Klout basics, there’s no excuse for you not to register! Visit http://klout.com to understand the parameters used so you can better understand your Klout profile.

Of course I do have a couple of tips on how to incorporate Klout into your overall marketing strategy, particularly as it relates to your social media activity. But you’ll have to tune in to my next post to find out more!

Ciao,
Miss Kemya