I recently read a fellow marketer's recommendation of Klout in an e-blast, and while I appreciate his enthusiasm, I don't agree with his logic and support of this application as the be-all, end-all of social media influence measurement.
I look at my own Klout score from time to time, but I take it with a grain of salt. It's maybe the best indicator out there right now, but how accurate is it really in determining influence, which by Dictionary.com's definition is, "the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others?"
True, @BarackObama's Klout score of 90 seems impressive. But @JustinBieber's Klout score is 100. Can anybody reasonably argue that a 16-year-old has more influence than the president of the United States? Are the retweets, comments and mentions of pre-teen girls really more significant and unpactful than those of the US president's constituency?
How about someone who has just 3 followers? This person's Klout score might be relatively low. But what if those 3 followers were Barack Obama, John Boehner, and Ben Bernanke? It could be argued that this person could be in a position of powerful influence regardless of whether they were retweeted by those users.
I am also a little suspect of Klout's data, some of which seems surprisingly old. I've been listed 107 times on Twitter, and this has been the case for a long time, but my Klout score reflects that I've been listed just 50 times. This makes me doubt the accuracy the rest of the data regarding retweets and mentions too. I really don't understand why this information is inaccurate though because it is dynamically generated and easily accessible. The list data seems at least 6-months old.
So, taking all of this into consideration, I really do take my own Klout score with a grain of salt. I commend the people at Klout for creating what is perhaps the best indicator available right now for social media influence, but Klout's algorithm unfortunately favors people such as celebrities. Let's not confuse popularity with influence.
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