Merlins Vlog

Klout Needs a Hug

28 October on Customers, Video   Tags: , , , ,

The changes Klout made are not all the bad. They are only making changes because of us, the users. Don't hate too hard.

Merlin U Ward is a passionate marketeer and strategist. As a serial entrepreneur he has built multiple companies in a variety of industries including tourism, nightlife, video, business networking and marketing. Google

  • @MimiBakerMN

    RTs are a vital part of our conversations! I wish they hadn’t decided to give FB so much credence as I don’t “engage” as much there. I have friends and family who don’t give a hoot about social media in terms of algorithms and scores. They just want to say, “Going to moms for the day”. Not going to change how I do things because Klout is giving more weight to our engagement there so that kind of peeves me. I dropped 15 pts, but as you said, it’s not personal, we all dropped. Hopefully those in PR will take notice when they ask us for our scores and realize that all the numbers dropped, not just mine! Great devil’s advocate Merlin!

    • http://MerlinUWard.com Merlin U Ward

      I always say, if you’re not using a social media platform, don’t list it. Because Klout measure engagement as the primary attribute to influence, if you’re connecting platforms you don’t perform on then there is not reason to have them. 

  • http://twitter.com/AdamBritten Adam Britten

    I commented in #kloutchat that I agree, but I want to post a comment here as well. From what I know about Klout, you are completely right. They say that people who retweet frequently will see that their RTs are suddenly less valuable. Instead, people who are influential (like CEOs, CMOs, etc) but who retweet less frequently will see that their RTs are more valuable when it comes to Klout scores. (Which makes sense, right?)

    And you’re right, most people saw about the same decrease in score….so really we are at the same place that we were before.

    • http://MerlinUWard.com Merlin U Ward

      Thanks for your comment, Adam!

      It wouldn’t surprise me if they worked the algorithm to weigh your behaviors based on the volume of each behavior. A simple algorithm would be highly affected by volume – sheer number of follows, likes, commments, RT, etc – but a smart algorithm would try to distinguish the value per action. This is what I believe Klout has adjusted for. We as users, if we want higher scores, need to try to make each action we take add as much value as possible. A message that rings in the “11,111 Tweets and Growing” posts as well.

  • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

    Merlin, are you saying that in particular tweets that incorporate RT’s during chats (such as #blogchat) have been deprecated by @Klout:twitter ?

    • http://MerlinUWard.com Merlin U Ward

      That is the theory that I’m testing. As Adam mentioned above, it could be that they are weighing the actions/behaviors of each user based on the volumes of those actions. So someone who RT’s a lot would, each RT would be of less value than that of the RT of someone who doesn’t RT often. And it’s not just RT’s. If all your tweets mention someone, than your mentions are weighed less than some one who has an even spread of RT, Mentions and Links. Starting to sound a bit like the Credit Scores, huh? 

      • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

        I understand the theory of the value of the RT’s. Do you think that affects just the recipient or does it lower the “influence” of the person giving out the RT’s as well? If Klout might be scanning for engagement during twitter chats, might the use of any hash tag act as a negative flag? That is worth testing.

        #BWELA is going on over the next 3 days with huge volumes of tweets in that stream with everything from information sharing to live-blogging.

        At one point we began to use #keyword in tweets. Perhaps those are over-used now as well. Very necessary for sharing events both conference like and on a global scale like a death or disaster but probably not necessary for keywords like #travel or #food. Those words are searchable without hashes.  Not sure how Klout treats those for influential topics either.

        They probably will not come up with a way to account for multiple twitter accounts. I split my efforts between @LindaSherman which I started in Dec 2007 and two accounts I started up last year: @KauaiTalk which is quite important to me and a bit @BoomerTechTalk. The dilution I took on with the second account certainly negatively affected my Klout score previous to this week but the 16 point hit I took with the new algorithm brings my scores to levels that don’t make a whole lot of sense. I can see why some people are choosing to opt-out but especially because I need to understand it for my clients, I’m hanging in there.

        • http://MerlinUWard.com Merlin U Ward

          Linda, its possible it affects both people if they are weighting based on volumes. It may be that RT’s as a whole are just not weighted as much either. That part will be difficult to test without a large sample of accounts. 

          I don’t think hashtags are a flag by any means. Hashtags are more topical and used for context. They affect “topics” and I would be surprised if Klout devalues tweet with #’s. 

          It’s important to understand the qualitative change in your Klout as well. The reason I began my theory was that I went from “Pundit” to “Specialist”, which mean to me means that it wasn’t the volume of tweets that has been revalued, it was a revaluation of the type of engagement I was receiving. A revaluation of my retweets would cause that. 

          Remember also most everyone’s score dropped by about 12 pts, which means the drop in relative terms really wasn’t a change at all. It was just the playing field being evened out.

          How did you Klout Style change? 

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            Except that on the Klout blog http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/10/a-more-accurate-transparent-klout-score/ they showed a distribution of change. It seems like it was the over 60 klout accounts who took the drop. 

            My style hasn’t changed. I am rather social so my tweets are a mix of events, chats, heads up tweets on local events and decent dose of information.

            I spend time building websites and meeting with clients and I don’t consider engaging in social media myself as a full time job. My online activity fluctuates slightly based on what is going on.

            I have always had a very strong IRL network and that is probably not adequately measured with automated systems.

            Shame you’re not coming to BWELA. Hope to meet you at something else over the year. Let’s connect on Twitter, Facebook and G+.

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            Just talked to a friend currently w high 60′s @Klout at #BWELA. It was of course significantly higher before the new algo. He’s watching his score go down daily. Latest hint by his reading: interacting with people with lower Klout drags down your score.

            Several people talking about this here say: This is unfortunate for people who are social and who care about lifting up others on social media. Are we supposed to take the “social” out of social media?

            Can you please also let us know what you find about this.  Is there a particular Klout score minimum that they are looking for – below which interaction drives our scores down?

            Thanks for your continuing efforts on this.

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            More @klout theories from #BWELA. Like edgerank on Facebook, engagement as a percent is taken into account in the algo. So that is why those of us who have been around a long time and have thousands in our network might drop while our clients who have fewer in their networks but as a percentage (with our encouragement) engage with more of their network would see their scores go up or at least not go down with the new algo.

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            This out 2 hours ago. http://mashable.com/2011/11/03/klout-startups/ Wahooly tie up sets minimum influence at 45 Klout score.

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            TY @NickyHants Want to be sure to mention the shift to the importance of Facebook for @Klout score.

            Heard today that college students are becoming aware that recruiters will look at their Klout score. Student leap onto Klout could affect the bell curve.

          • http://ItsDifferent4girls.com Linda Sherman

            From Joe Fernandez
            “The last week there have been so many rumors,” he said. “There are just
            a lot of misconceptions about the new algorithm. We are addressing some
            concerns.”

            “What annoys me the most is the rumor that it [the new algorithm]
            penalizes you for talking to people with low influence,” he said. “We
            are not about that kind of elitism. In reality, the way it works is that
            anyone who engages in your content helps you, the more influential they
            are the more helpful it is.”

            The reality is 53 percent of peoples scores actually went up, he told
            Fox News Latino. The CEO admits he’s surprised by the reaction but
            believes the controversy over the new algorithm is partly because the
            people who dropped in score tended to be more at the top end, so they
            are louder about it.Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2011/11/03/klout-ceo-fernandez-responds-to-critics-gives-tips-and-talks-future/#ixzz1ch1KRCzY

About Merlin
I love beer, funky socks and strategy. A true geek and marketeer at heart. I work by the philosophy "marketing is a part of everything." The idea marketing is part of every process in business.
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