What is Klout and how do you use it to understand your social presence?

15 June 2012

Not only is today’s net filled to the brim with tons of different social networking sites, like Digg and Twitter and Facebook and so on, but you can also find many different sites out there that can give you statistics as to how successful your overall social media presence is. Just as you can find many different sites to tell you what kind of traffic you’re receiving for your main website, you can get important information as to your social presence. This information is quite invaluable if you’re using social media to build your brand.

The main site people use for this purpose is Klout. So, it’s important that people understand exactly what the site is and what it does before they attempt to use it as any barometer for their overall social presence.

Defining Klout and What it Is

Operating as an online tool to measure your business’s social media influence, Klout uses a complicated algorithm to gauge your effectiveness. Things taken into account include categories like Amplification, True Reach, and your Network Impact. For Amplification in particular, you’re looking at how engaged and how motivated your followers are on your social media sites. Obviously, this is the most important chunk of data in the criterion, and thus having a few engaged followers gives you more clout than having a lot of followers who aren’t engaged at all.

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