social media Archives - Page 8 of 44 by Mark Murnahan

Google+ and Other Ways to Avoid Blog Comments

One great benefit of social media is the ability to communicate with others in the format and space they want to communicate. Some people will choose to discuss a topic on Facebook, while others choose LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Amplify, or a squillion others. Many people will pick a handful of networks to focus their attention, based on their interests or their intended audience, and monitor them vigilantly. Google+ is climbing the ranks of preferred networks very quickly!

Blog readers and writers take note: You probably don’t notice this challenge much from a reader standpoint, but if you are a blogger who is paying attention to where your content is being discussed, you probably see this all the time. Do you ever notice that there are comments in about 37 different contexts spread across a handful of networks, all related to a single blog post?

As a blog article spreads, it is threaded into a lot of places with a lot of different conversations. Although they usually include a link back to the original article, very few of those outside conversations really do a good job of connecting the audience to the central conversation, or vice versa. After all, those comments somewhere else are seldom seen by the people reading the article, so they don’t get the benefit of those other peoples’ thoughts and opinions … and it squelches opportunities for them to network together with those other like-minded people. Sometimes that is a real shame.

It is great when your article is being shared and discussed. It would be foolish to discourage it, but when the conversation … the very genesis of the topic … begins with a blog article, it can also have some downsides. The message can become very muddled, and the conversations often stray far from the original topic. I have seen it a squillion times that the conversations do not even touch on the topic of the original blog article beyond the headline or description.

Again, this can be great in some ways. The evolution of a topic can be fascinating as it is morphed through enough various groups’ brain filters. However, even in the best scenario that it does not lose all of the author’s well-crafted thought provoking intent, this can still lead to a pretty messy challenge for the originator to keep up with the many conversations. When it comes to blogs, either reading them or writing them, those opinions count. Sometimes the best part of a blog article is in the comments that build upon the topic.

Native Blog Comments vs. Off-Blog Comments

When conversations are broken apart, each of the individual discussions will often lose a lot of the best and most well thought out responses from the smartest and most worthwhile participants. Also, as I already mentioned, it significantly discounts many opportunities for others with like minds to network together.

In the end, let’s face it … more people are going to see the original article in its native environment than they will on any given reader’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ profile. With that in mind, if you really have something to say, you will do the author, yourself, and other readers a much greater service by including your comments on that blog article. Best of all, your comment is usually just as convenient, and can often even be shared in duplicate, with a single click, to your other social networks if you should choose. That way, others can see what you thought of the topic even before they go and read the article.

Some social networks have helped to make accommodations for this challenge, but others still have some work to do. I am hopeful that this will be a part of future Google+ improvements.

An example of a huge leap forward toward connecting blogs with outside conversations was in Facebook comments, which allow for comments to be shared both on the originating blog and on Facebook simultaneously. This is one way I think that Facebook is still whipping Google+ in a huge way, although I expect that to change.

Similarly, Disqus does a fantastic job of connecting conversations across networks, although it could still be better at pulling in off-blog comments with higher accuracy. BackType used to fit this need by bringing in conversations from all over the place, but they kind of wrecked that system in favor of other money-making hopes.

If you are not familiar with the usage and benefits of Facebook comments, there is more about the platform in my earlier article titled “How to Add Facebook Comments to a Blog and Improve Search Ranking“. If you are not familiar with Disqus, you may enjoy the article titled “Why Disqus May Be The Best Social Network of 2011“.

In any case, I think that making a greater connection with those off-blog comments is a responsibility of the blog owner, and should always be taken seriously. There are a lot of ways to monitor those conversations, and none of them are a perfect magic bullet. It takes a lot of attention, but should not be overlooked.

Google+ vs. Blog Comments

Google+ is an excellent platform. I really like it for many reasons, and not the least of which is the high level of interactivity that I have encountered there. It seems that people are really enjoying a lot of conversation on Google+.

Of course, some of that active engagement may be because it is still a bit of a novelty. It could also be that, although it is a much different type of platform, people are seeing it as a chance for a “do-over” by handling it differently than they handled their Twitter or Facebook. Whatever the case, it seems to me that people are using it in great ways, and it is far less spam-riddled and spam-prone than many other networks.

Sadly, Google+ also poses a greater challenge for monitoring and participating in the outside conversations about your topics. I hope it will change, but in the meantime, I think it is worth being aware and attentive to as many as possible.

What Makes Sense to You?

It is an extreme example, but do you ever see a comment on an outside network about a blog article and it shows without a doubt that the person responding did not even give a passing glance at the original context, beyond the headline? It could frustrate the originating author, but for me, I mostly just chock it up to another brainiac trying to sound smart without the will to actually be smart. You know, like reading beyond the headline before replying. Yes, this is an extreme example, but here is something I find to be common: comments directly on a blog will nearly always be more on-topic and more beneficial to the community.

The greatest variable across all of this wonderful technology is you. Nobody is going to tell you how to use a blog, either as a commenter or an author. The best I can hope for is to give you some encouragement … you know, a nudge. Where you take it from there is up to you. In my opinion, as well as my actual usage, I find it beneficial that if I am making a comment about a blog article, I duplicate it with a simple copy and paste from the original article to whatever network I am sharing it on. That is, if that option is not already a part of the blog itself, which it often is.

What do you have to say about this? Go ahead … put it on some other network where nobody but a few of your friends will see it. Otherwise, feel free to join in and stop being so damn elusive. What are you afraid of? These people don’t bite!

P.S. Biters please refrain from biting other respondents … just this once. 😉

Related Articles: You didn’t think this was my first go at an article about blogging, did you? I think these will give you some really good food for thought!

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Confession of a Workaholic and Benefits of Unplugging

Have you ever been told that you work too much, or that your work seems to follow you everywhere? If so, I just want to offer up a thought that it may be because you are doing it wrong. Maybe I’m wrong, but what if I am actually right? Stick around and judge that for yourself.

I “unplugged” myself over the weekend, and it felt great. I spent very little time at a computer, and I only used my cell phone enough to be sure nothing was on fire in my professional life.

I remember times when I would feel guilty for taking a break like that, and I find that sometimes social media emphasizes the “rat race” feeling of having to be everywhere at once. Fortunately for myself and everybody around me, I learned how and why to let go of those guilty feelings.

I generally feel very proud of my work ethic. Doing my job well is important to me, and I know that a lot of other people must feel this way, too. I hope you do. A hazard that is easy to overlook is when you become so engrossed in work that you chase productivity right off a cliff. That is when the term “workaholic” generally applies. What workaholics often do not realize is when it is happening, or when to step back and take a fresh look. Allow me to share some thoughts and experience with you.

What if I Miss an Important Call?

Tell me if this sounds familiar. If you nod your head even once, I hope you have learned when and how to unplug. If not, maybe I can encourage you a bit.

I have been plugged into my job with the latest productivity tools that technology has to offer and remain that way year after year. I have carried smart phones since they first became available, and I have had mobile Internet at my side since its earliest availability. My job has always required it, and delegating the really important tasks to somebody else has often seemed impossible, or marginally possible but terrifying at best.

My example may be a bit extreme, but I know it will resonate with some micro-managers and other workaholics. You see, aside from being a marketing guy, I am also the CEO of a company that provides Internet services to service providers. Since 2000, I have been responsible for more servers operating in more data centers across America, and Internet connectivity to more end-consumers than all but very small number of people. When there are millions of dollars riding on things working perfectly 99.999 percent of the time, somebody has to hold ultimate accountability and make decisions in the event that thousands of websites or Internet connections are affected by a DOS attack or a router going bad. That is usually the guy with chest pains and a death grip on his cell phone.

Even long before that, I remember keeping a “bag phone” no more than a few feet away back in the 1980’s. You know, because a consulting client may have had some brilliant idea to run by me at any minute of the day. Yikes … it has actually been decades now. Time sure can slip by fast when you are running a business, and all that time, I have been just a bit uncomfortable that I may miss an important call.

My willingness to work harder and keep pushing my capabilities against all odds has served me well. I have grown some great companies, and I have had an exciting career. Like any career, it has had its ups and downs. Whenever it seems to become a bit lackluster, I start looking back into my career history to try and find patterns and to figure out what I am doing wrong … or what I am just not doing right.

A common reason I found for the productivity downturns is when I pushed a little too far beyond my optimal productivity and lost focus on the purpose of my career.

I think of it in terms of a Gaussian function … you know, like a bell curve. If you sit at the top of your productivity bell curve, you are doing it right. Pushing beyond that, you quickly enter a point of diminishing returns, and the productivity outcome is no longer worth the effort.

Yes, I am a math geek. Since I am a marketing guy, and a computer programmer on top of that, it should be expected. Don’t worry though, I will not drag you into a mathematical discussion of probability distribution.

Has Somebody Warned You About Workaholism?

Has anybody ever questioned how you keep on doing what you are doing? Maybe you have heard somebody ask “Do you ever sleep?” I have heard this a lot, but I always used to take it as a compliment. What I eventually realized is that it is sometimes better to take it as a caution.

I’ll give you an example. In about 2004, my wife told me that I was working too hard and that I needed to take more time for myself. She encouraged a hobby, so I began taking more time for an old passion of motorcycles. That carried on, and moved me on to my life-long passion for cars. Not just cars, but really fast cars, and racing them.

I took more time to unplug myself just enough to see why I worked so hard in the first place. When it came to the real purpose of my career, it had an emphasis in providing security for my family, and to enjoy some leisure. Realizing it enough to rejuvenate myself with the original passion required me to take a step back and see it as a part of the picture and not the whole picture.

Once I realized the important reasons I was working so hard, things went gangbusters. My business went crazy! Things were better at home, and we had more babies. As crazy as this may seem, each baby gave me a pay raise. It happened because I worked smarter instead of working harder, and I learned the value of balance. Don’t get me wrong, I was still carrying all the technology and productivity tools with me. I have still been on-call 24 hours per day since the 1990’s, but once I realized that my career was just a part of the bigger job of being happy … I got happier!

The power of a refreshed mind, and the power of happiness may seem mythical at times. The common wisdom is that you must keep your nose to the grindstone, walk on fire, and a whole lot of other uncomfortable things. If you really believe it when people tell you these things are the keys to having a successful career, I believe you are doing yourself a disservice. Endurance is extremely important, and unplugging can provide huge benefits. It is not all about how much pain and tragedy you can endure.

Business and Career Require Endurance, But Not a Grindstone!

Having peace in your career, and realizing that it is an endurance race and not a short sprint is a big step toward succeeding. Enjoying what you do, and looking closer at why you are doing it is far more valuable than grinding your nose and burning your feet. I am saying this from experience, and what I truly believe.

In a look-back, I find things I have known for years and told myself I would never forget, but I still seem to forget them somehow. One of them is the wisdom of knowing when to disconnect, and actually having the courage to do it. “Unplugging” can be a great chance to reboot and resume greater productivity, but easy to neglect until later.

I have been taking a closer look at myself and my career history recently. I look at some of the peaks in my own career, and I find that some of the most productive times have been when I realized when to push less. Sometimes the timing did not seem logical, because conventional wisdom says that when you are riding a huge wave, it is the time to surf with all you’ve got. Unconventional, but often more productive wisdom says that if you are not careful, burnout can set in even faster than expected.

My best times ever have come after remembering to relax just a little more and stop punishing myself. It has been a little while since I felt this way, but when I knew it and remembered it, I got happy. In fact, I got happy enough that I was earning more money every week or two than an average American family was per year … all while struggling less, working fewer hours, and enjoying everything a lot more than before.

Maybe you’ve heard the term “hindsight is 20/20”. Of course, that means you can see the past perfectly clearly. I don’t think it is quite that perfect, but it holds a lot of predictive data, along with all of that great stuff we call experience.

I pushed like crazy to build a company to pay me enough to feel satisfied. I kept pushing for as long as I saw continual progress, but then I learned when it was time to unplug, and even face my fears to delegate a few tasks when it was appropriate.

I think I’ll try that again. It was sure more fun than feeling guilty to take in a little leisure. It was more profitable, too!

I have just one more bug to put in your ear. If you know somebody needing to delegate their marketing more wisely, I will be delighted to hear from them. Oh, or a race team looking for a wining driver … I am well-qualified for that, too! 😉

Coming Soon: Maybe you’ll think it is completely nuts to unplug and take a step back. I will soon share something that gave me a good reminder to pull the plug. I think you’ll like it. I hope you’ll be sure to return.

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Do You Accept SEO or Social Media Marketing Contracts Under $10,000?

I could sit here at my computer all day and tease people who are willing to take on small contracts in the field of SEO and social media marketing, or the clients willing to pay them. Many of those clients are broke, and there are a lot of bad people with an SEO and social media flag waving to attract the last of their money.

Giving them a hard time can be very fun, but it is not really all that productive. After all, there is a huge majority of small businesses who seek somebody to help them, but do not have the needed resources for a grand entrance to the online market. There are also some talented marketing minds who like working with small or short-term contracts. I prefer to help bring them together.

I don’t accept those contracts, but not because I am an arrogant jerk who thinks he knows it all. I don’t arbitrarily look down upon those companies, and I don’t automatically look down upon the people serving them. It is just not my market, and I turn away business every day because of this.

If you accept small projects in SEO and social media marketing, I have some free leads for you. I don’t mean just a bunch of shabby sales leads from people hoping to spend an hour of research online to find a free website that will earn them a squillion dollars. I mean real companies hoping to make an entrance to their market.

This does not mean that I am a bad option, or that I am expensive. I return huge profits for my clients, and I am worth many times my rates. It also does not mean that you are bad, or “cheap”. We all have our market space here, and mine is in long-term and well-funded strategic projects. In fact, you can use me as an example to show your potential clients that you are not just trying to rip them off. It really does cost a lot of money and work to create success. Bigger success takes bigger experience, bigger money, and bigger strategy. Those are the projects I accept.

I believe that we both have a similar challenge of building confidence in customers. I even expressed some troubling truths only a few days ago in a long-winded article about a short-sighted customer who has done business with me for years. Check it out for yourself: “Marketing ROI Factor: Are You a Client or a Customer?”

In reality, the upfront cost of an optimal campaign in SEO or social media is prohibitive for the majority of companies. Sure, if they could pony up the money for a well-researched campaign, they could turn over their investment at a much higher velocity. As it is, they will have a higher opportunity cost by cutting corners, but that is often the only option. It is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Even when the cost is not the biggest hurdle, putting money into an online marketing campaign is a damn scary proposition for many companies. Even when and if they can swing the money, they will dip their toe in to check for sharks before they go swimming. It is frequently not the best option, but it is a popular option. Again, it is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Note: Sharks are my friends, and whales are my clients. The other fish are looking for you. You like fish, right?

People probably ask you a lot of questions about this industry. You will sometimes need a third-party resource to help make your point. I am happy to help you ease their tension, and to help them make better decisions. My blog is always here, and there is a lot of useful information in my archive. I don’t even want a finder’s fee to send paying customers your way, or to help you explain the benefits of SEO or social media marketing to your customers. Not at all, because if you have a small budget to work with, the last thing you need is to spiff me with money.

I love spiffs, but I prefer to pay them rather than receive them. Reference my article earlier this year titled “SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction“. Yes, I really do prefer to pay you a $5,000 finders fee than for you to pay me a hundred. I am a money-spending madman like that. 😉

The Caveat … Yes, The Fine Print

The first thing to do is add your comment here on this article.

Of course, I don’t just want every cockroach in the Twinkies dumpster to hold out their hand for a free crumb. I want to hear from people who actually have a quality value proposition. The big catch is that for each person with their hand out, I will be watching. Yes, I will be looking at you, and judging you. I intend to provide a small degree of vetting. If I like what I find, I may put a spotlight on you in a follow-up article.

Because we are talking about people who looked to me for help, I am not about to mess up my reputation by referring them to somebody who will rip them off. I will watch my server logs to see how much and how long you have read my work. If you have been reading, and if you have subscribed, it is far more likely that we share similar principles. I will also notice if you have been a blog troll or lurker. If you are a non-communicating type of person, start communicating, and stop hiding in the shadows if you want my referral business.

Very Important: I will notice whether you are honest with your comment, and with your communications elsewhere on the Internet.

I welcome you to add your comments to explain your value. Feel free to spam all you like. If you seem spammy to me, I have a delete button for that. I tend to react pretty abruptly to people who annoy me. For example, don’t even think about commenting with your favorite keywords in place of a name. I am looking for people … real people with real names … who want more business.

The upside of my offer is that if you are legitimate, I would like to help my readers with appropriate options, and for us to possibly work together for mutual benefit. I am serious when I say that I want quality people to refer small project business to. If you are good and honorable, we may work together a lot in the future.

I have assembled a phenomenal team for producing massive success, but there never seems to be enough marketing talent to trust with the smaller projects.

I would also ask that in the event that you are ever over your head, that you consult me. You may find that you have enough resource to help that whale of a client after all.

Other Cost-Related Articles
Although it may seem hard to turn away a client only because of their budget, there are minimums I simply don’t work below. For more thought-provoking articles on the cost of SEO and social media marketing, and perhaps help with explaining cost to your clients, I offer the links as follows:

Photo Credit:
Broken Piggy Bank by Images_of_Money via Flickr

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Google Acquires Fridge, PittPatt, and PostRank, But What Does it Mean?

Google acquires many companies, but do you ever notice which ones, and do you ever speculate on why Google wants these start-up companies? I think it makes for some great water cooler gossip, but I also think it begins to form a picture of where our Internet is, and where it is moving.

Some of the recent Google acquisitions have been Fridge, which has a focus on security in social sharing, and PittPatt (Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition), a facial recognition developer. With only minimal creativity, one can imagine how these could each be useful to Google. I am confident that we will see influence from these technologies as Google continues to enhance the Google+ platform and other Google products.

In fact, if you have used Google+ at all, you can see some uncanny similarities between Google+ and Fridge.

Google and PostRank: An Obvious Match

I think perhaps one of the most telling of Google’s recent acquisitions is when they picked up PostRank in June. I wrote about PostRank back in 2010 in an article titled “Social Media Measurement Tools: What Do They Know About You?” Something I stated in that article was as follows: “PostRank pulls data from many sources, which makes it far less fallible than others which only measure single points of data.” It seems that Google noticed the value in this as well.

The image below shows an example of a PostRank score for a given article and indicates what PostRank knows about it. PostRank data can still be flawed, due to network restrictions and the sheer volume of data, but it does a good job.

We obviously know that Google has been very keen on social media for a long time. In fact, I have often said that Google is the ultimate king of social media. I do not mean because of their efforts with relative non-starters like Google Wave and Google Buzz, or the social feed in Google search results.

When I say that Google is the king of social media, I mean that because they have always made extraordinary strides toward measuring and delivering the information that is deemed important by social interaction. That social interaction has historically been in the form of websites linking to other websites. Google not only measures links from website to website, but they qualify it with the more popular websites providing amplification to the signal. This principle is not changing, but the methods and complexities of measurement are changing. In my estimation, Google is not missing a beat, and the acquisition of PostRank further adds to their reach.

People have tried to argue that Google’s measurement of links from one website to another is not social media, but let’s have a look at “social”. Social means, literally, “Of or relating to society or its organization” and it doesn’t just mean the microcosmic view of making buddies or socializing in the “let’s grab a beer” sense. By measuring website links, Google has used a social response from others to determine what people want, and what they are looking for.

So, let’s look at how the modern use of social media changed things. Google’s historical measurement of links is still just as social-based as what we see in modern social networks. The overall factors of separating the popular from the unpopular are similar. The difference today is that the simplicity of sharing those links is much easier for the non-technical “John and Mary Lunchbucket” type who don’t know anything about websites or HTML. Accordingly, it is much faster, and the amount of information to sort through is huge. There are a lot of factors to assimilate, and far more data points than ever before. Google is extremely efficient at this, but now Google has even more help gathering that data.

Since you may wonder how Google’s acquisition of PostRank really makes sense, or how it can help Google, here is a brief statement about PostRank in their own words:

What is PostRank?
The social web connects people where they share, critique and interact with content and each other. PostRank is the largest aggregator of social engagement data in the industry.

Our platform tracks where and how users engage, and what they pay attention to — in real-time. PostRank social engagement data measures actual user activity, the most accurate indicator of the relevance and influence of a site, story, or author.

PostRank provides useful data for publishers, and now that data will be useful to Google as well. I have heard a lot of people confused about how Google views the usage of modern social networks. I think it is absurd that a person could actually think they are not making efficient use of this information. For anybody who doubts the degree to which Google gives attention to modern social signals, the acquisition of PostRank should give a further indication that they are serious.

What Google Says About PostRank

According to an article on TechCrunch, Google made the statement about their acquisition of PostRank as follows:

“We’re always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we’re excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers.”

As I said in my recent article about Klout, “I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.”

If you are curious about how it works, or what PostRank knows about your presence on the web, I would encourage you to take a closer look and get familiar with PostRank.

This further emphasizes what I have always claimed, which is that SEO and social media marketing are entirely intertwined, and always will be. Through it all, I think it is important to note that Google wants to index your website, and they even go to great lengths to help you help yourself.

Please tell me what you think.

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Klout: Online Influence Measurement … Like it or Not!

Klout is a social measurement tool that places a numeric value on a person’s influence within their social media circles. The service currently pulls data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare for their influence calculations, but plans to add Google+, YouTube, Facebook Pages, and others for a total of 20 networks by the end of 2011.

On the surface, it may sound positively impersonal, and even a bit absurd to make judgments based on a number, but is it really? We’ve been doing it for many years with credit scores. I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.

Klout seems to have really honed in on a couple of interesting psychological and business needs of social media. I will explain what I mean, and how it could have a real-world impact for a lot of people, whether they like it or not.

I wrote about Klout back in 2010 in an article on the topic of social media measurement tools and what they know about you. It raised a question of what this type of service may know, and what level of accuracy or inaccuracy they may reflect. This type of data collection across multiple networks is subject to errors. Reliability is simply not guaranteed, but it is getting better.

Klout Score and Perceived Personal Worth

Klout hits on a very personal psychological need for a lot of people, which is the need to feel valuable. I think we can largely agree that we all want to feel like we make an impact. We want to know that we are being heard.

This is not to say that we are all Narcissistic for using social media, but only that it would not be so fun to communicate if nobody listened to us or acknowledged us. If that was the way we wanted it, we would just keep all of our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media thoughts to ourselves. We could keep them on our own computers and we wouldn’t need this Internet to share them.

The desire to share and collaborate clearly creates a strong psychological drive for many people. I do not think it is at all strange for somebody to feel a sense of greater personal satisfaction when their thoughts or ideas receive Facebook shares and comments, or Twitter replies and retweets. It is no more Narcissistic or bizarre than how it feels to receive applause for any job done well. In some cases, it can actually be quite humbling, like when the whole restaurant starts singing “Happy Birthday” and you just want to sink deep down into your seat as you blush. At the same time, it feels kind of alluring and it makes you smile.

When it comes to social media, it is easy to be just a bit allured by the objective measurements. I’ll be the first to raise my hand. When I see a squillion people sharing my work, I love it. It makes me happy, like sucking free grape soda through a garden hose, while eating from kiddie pool piled high with bacon. It feels very satisfying, and validating.

So, I am sure you can imagine how this psychological desire applies to Klout. Klout measures a person’s influence of others. People want to know their Klout Score, and it is pretty hard to fault them for that. This makes it easy to understand why it has had such a strong level of attention, and how it holds huge potential for continued growth.

The Business End of Klout

Far beyond the typical consumer desire to be measured as accepted, popular, or influential, there is a strong business side of Klout that is undeniable.

Thousands of companies are using Klout’s information in hiring decisions, purchasing decisions, and in their communications strategies. Whether you like it or you don’t, and whether it is right or wrong, numbers are a front-line component in our business world. Scoring such as offered by Klout is being relied upon more all the time as Internet static continues to flood into our business communications.

There is magic in numbers! I am a marketing guy, so I rely on a lot of different sets of numbers. Many of the numbers that are conventionally viewed as important don’t mean a damn thing to me. Inaccurate or meaningless data would be an easy way for a guy in my line of work to waste a lot of time, and burn through huge amounts of money. That means I need the good stuff. I want the least fallible information I can get my hands on, and that is where my attention is focused.

Klout’s data is largely based on activities across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but there is another component that allows a sort of industry-specific peer review. Yes, Klout also includes industry-specific information about an individual’s influence. In this peer review model, others may enhance a person’s Klout by clicking to give them “+K” for a given segment, and it is like a vote. The “K” is wisely limited so that a user only has five “K” to give out per day. So, if I wanted to give you a “K” because you influenced me in some way, I cannot go wild and spike your Klout score. If I really liked you, I could come back each day and give you “K”, but that would not provide unreliable data, because it would reliably reflect your high level of influence upon me.

Klout also attempts to define a style in which a person influences others. These styles provide an interesting overall view of how the individual uses their social media. There are sixteen different styles, and they are described as follows:

Klout Style Definitions
Curator: You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network.  You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about.  Your hard work is very much appreciated.
Broadcaster: You broadcast great content that spreads like wildfire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.
Taste Maker: You know what you like and your audience likes it too. You know what’s trending, but you do more than just follow the crowd. You have your own opinion that earns respect from your network.
Celebrity: You can’t get any more influential than this. People hang on your every word, and share your content like no other. You’re probably famous in real life and your fans simply can’t get enough.
Syndicator: You keep tabs on what’s trending and who’s important to watch. You share the best of this with your followers and save them from having to find what’s hot on their own. You probably focus on a specific topic or cater to a defined audience.
Feeder: Your audience relies on you for a steady flow of information about your industry or topic. Your audience is hooked on your updates and secretly can’t live without them.
Thought Leader: You are a thought leader in your industry. Your followers rely on you, not only to share the relevant news, but to give your opinion on the issues. People look to you to help them understand the day’s developments. You understand what’s important and what your audience values that.
Pundit: You don’t just share news, you create the news. As a pundit, your opinions are wide-spread and highly trusted. You’re regularly recognized as a leader in your industry. When you speak, people listen.
Dabbler: You might just be starting out with the social web or maybe you’re not that into it. If you want to grow your influence, try engaging with your audience and sharing more content.
Conversationalist: You love to connect and always have the inside scoop. Good conversation is not just a skill, it’s an art. You might not know it, but when you are witty, your followers hang on every word.
Socializer: You are the hub of social scenes and people count on you to find out what’s happening. You are quick to connect people and readily share your social savvy. Your followers appreciate your network and generosity.
Networker: You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.
Observer: You don’t share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on. You may just enjoy observing more than sharing or you’re checking this stuff out before jumping in full-force.
Explorer: You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it”, we predict you’ll be moving up.
Activist: You’ve got an idea or cause you want to share with the world and you’ve found the perfect medium for it. Your audience counts on you to champion your cause.
Specialist: You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.

These are not handed out at random, but rather based on the outgoing and incoming data about each given profile. Although, for some really crazy but totally flattering reason, Klout measures me as a “Celebrity”. Of course, to that I’d say “Heck yeah … roll out the red carpet and pop the champagne. There’s gonna be a party!”

Is That Paparazzi I Hear Approaching, or Just More Naked Coeds Running to Greet Me?

Is Klout Accurate?

Do I think that Klout is entirely accurate? Absolutely not, but I do believe they are doing a good job. One reason is the sheer volume of their data. They are currently compiling data about more than 75 million users, and expect to include information from 20 different networks by the end of 2011. The numbers become more accurate in higher volume, but that is not enough. What about how that data is processed? This is where Klout really stands out, and pulls away from the crowd.

Klout organizes data from more sources and uses more factors than other companies trying to compile and present a numeric score. The broad diversity of data acquisition makes it much harder to cheat a Klout score, and thus, more reliable than other online influence measurement tools. If you have not already done so, it is worth taking a look at how Klout compiles scores. There is clearly a far more in-depth process than what is described, but it will give you a good overview.

Like anything else, Klout can be manipulated for an increased score, but not without a high degree of talent, and significant efforts.

Historical data is critically important in many business processes, but let’s not overlook the value of predictive data. With the right data at hand, I can imagine predictive data becoming a part of the Klout algorithm in the future, as people seek those who are on the rise. Imagine the business value of finding those with high potential who are just not on the RADAR yet.

Is Klout Good or Evil?

Is Klout good or evil? This is a question that it seems a lot of people struggle with about any company which acquires a lot of data. I think it is good, and it helps to meet some challenging needs of businesses and individuals surrounding trust and reputation.

Everybody wants to have influence, but it comes in a package with other factors. Those other factors of trust and reputation are often even harder for companies and individuals to put their finger on. Klout offers some broad insight about an individual and how others view them.

Would I weigh an important hiring or purchasing decision, or a business partnership choice heavily based on Klout? I guess you would have to define heavily for me to answer that, but in many scenarios, I would definitely have to consider it a factor.

Let’s face it, we are each measured every day. Whether it is for the style of our hair, the car we drive, the company we keep, the way we walk, talk, and even how we chew our food. Somebody will always be watching and summing us up. Klout takes it to the social web and makes well-founded estimates about us based on observations.

Perhaps the best answer, for anybody who does not like it, is to consider the other ways in which we are judged based on less reliable factors and guesswork. In the case of Klout, I don’t think it is any more an invasion of privacy or an intrusion than people-watching in a shopping mall.

In the instance of social media, if you are doing the equivalent of standing there picking your nose, somebody will probably notice. In fact, they may even share it on Facebook, and get a higher Klout score for it!

Now if you’d just go and tweet this, Facebook it, give me a Klout “+K” bump for social media, and make a lot of comments about it, maybe I will get that new dreamy offer I’ve been seeking and share some of my Klout with you.

Fine, even if you don’t give me any “K”, I urge you to check it out just to see what Klout knows about you. It may uncover people that you influence and didn’t even know it, or it may introduce you to somebody new to connect with. It’s free, so you don’t have anything to lose, and quite possibly something to gain.

Photo Credits:
Job Interview by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr
I Made It by Kirsten via Flickr

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