Brilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge link of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts here.
Want to be a BlogWorld Brilliant Blogger? Scroll to the end to find out how to submit your post for an upcoming edition!
This Week’s Topic: Klout
In case you missed it, this past weekend I posted “Klout 101: What the Heck Is It and Why Should I Care?” all about the social media influence measurer Klout. I was curious about this tool myself, since I didn’t know much about it beyond “Oh, look at my score. That’s nice.” I’m no expert, that’s for sure, but doing some research for that post and reading all of the entries and posts I found on the topic has really made me want to start using the site more often! On the other hand, there is also a downside to using Klout, so it is definitely important to think about this tool with a critical eye. If you want to learn more about Klout, the following brilliant posts are an awesome place to start!
Advice from Brilliant Bloggers:
Digital Influence Recalibrated, Part 1: Understanding Klout’s Measurement Spectrum by Olivier Blanchard
This is just the first of a series of posts on The Brand Builder blog about social media influence. It’s a really thoughtful series that I highly recommend – it explains what Klout is, why is is important, and some of the problems with Klout’s system. You can follow Olivier on Twitter @thebrandbuilder.
Klout for Business: A Sometimes Useful Metric – But an Incomplete View of Customers by Jeremiah Owyang
I highly recommend this post for two reasons: It is a great discussion of the limitations of Klout and it includes a comment from Klout’s CEO Joe Fernandez addressing a number of the points Jeremiah made in his post. Check it out and follow him on Twitter @jowyang.
The Klout Myth and Living Above The Influence by Dan Perez
This post is unlike most of the others you’re read on the topic. While Klout can certainly be an important tool to use, the lessons we learn about digital influence from Klout can – and should – be applied to the more important things in life. Head to Dan’s blog to read the full post and follow him on Twitter @danperezfilms.
BONUS POST: 16 Strategies to Win Over Online Influences Using Klout by Scott Hepburn
Usually I only pick three brilliant bloggers to highlight, but I just couldn’t stop myself from going for a frouth this week. This post by Scott at Media Emerging is AWESOME because it explains how you can use Klout to totally rethink the way you blog. LOVE IT. Follow Scott on Twitter @scotthepburn.
Even More Brilliant Advice:
- 4 Ways Klout Can Evolve by Geoff Livingston (@geoffliving)
- Ascent of the Social-Media Climbers by Beth Teitell
- Can you Trust your Klout score? by Daniel Lovell (@danlovell)
- Can Your Klout Score Change Your Life? Or Get You a Job? by Mark Babbitt (@youternmark)
- How Important is Klout? by Ryan Morben
- How to Accidentally Build Your Klout by John Hewitt (@poewar)
- How to Stop Talking about Influence by Francisco Rosales (@socialmouths)
- I calculated my Klout Score and all I got was a chip on my shoulder by Jas Banwait (@jasbanwait)
- In Defense Of Klout Measurement For Social Media Influence by Neal Schaffer (@nealschaffer)
- Influence That! by Danny Brown (@dannybrown)
- Influencing the Influencer by Brian Solis (@briansolis)
- The Joe Fernandez Interview: Klout CEO Says “Be Engaging and Be Consistent” by Julio R. Varela (@julito77)
- Klout as a Tool for Community Managers: Why I Don’t Buy It by Maggie (@maggielmcg)
- Klout Doesn’t Measure What Really Matters by Margie Clayman (@margieclayman)
- Klout In The Cracker Jack Box by Matthew Browne (@matthewliberty)
- Klout is Necessary by Trey Pennington (@treypennington)
- Klout: Is this really what it’s all about? by Jacqueline Wilson (@writrams)
- Klout is the New Followers Counts by Michele McGraw (@scrappinmichele)
- Klout, Schmout by Erica Allison (@ericamallison)
- The Klout Score, a Way to Measure Online Influence by Curt Finch (@clf99)
- Klout, The Tinkerbell Effect Remix by Mitch Lieberman (@mjayliebs)
- Klout With A Hint Of Reach by John Matthews (@linktrap)
- On Influence by Marshall Sponder (@webmetricsguru)
- Should We Be Keeping Score on Twitter? Klout Thinks So by Mathew Ingram (@mathewi)
- What Every Company Needs to Understand about Influencers and Reaching Them by Mack Collier (@MackCollier)
- What Is Your Influence Report Card by Heidi Cohen (@heidicohen)
- What’s Your Klout Worth? by Jason Cupp (@jasoncupp)
- Why Klout doesn’t Count: Putting Social Media Influence in Context by Matt Owen (@Lexx2099)
Did I miss your post or a post by someone you know about Klout? Unintentional! Help me out by leaving a comment below with the link!
Next Week’s Topic: Commenting on Other Blogs
Want your post included? Simple email me at allison@abcontentonline.com with “Brilliant Blogger Link” in the subject line. Remember, only posts about this topic will be accepted. If you have another brilliant post, save it for a topic that better fits the post! Submissions will be accepted until March 2, 2011 at noon. Deadline pass already? Head the most recent Brilliant Bloggers post to see this week’s topic. (Want to work ahead, getting ready for a future Brilliant Bloggers? Some upcoming topics include StumbleUpon, writing list posts, and getting more RSS subscribers.)
Learn from the Top and reach the top. 😀
Alli, thank you for including YouTern’s blog in this comprehensive list. Great resource, and fun to read the different voices on the subject of Klout.
Thanks for the mention, Alli. I agree with Jeremiah’s assessment: Useful for businesses, but an incomplete picture. Olivier did a nice job explaining the other insights Klout reveals beyond the simple Klout score.
Some more awesome links that have since been emailed and tweeted to me:
New Metrics Are No Excuse to Continue a Pattern of Lazy Analytics: An Example Using Klout: http://ow.ly/42CgF (by @brightmatrix)
Kloutgate: The Battle Between Mean Girls and Influencers: http://bit.ly/fwMWGo (by @wordsdonewrite with a hat tip to @ericamallison for the link)
The New Currency: Ideas or Influence? http://bit.ly/bEuInD and Klout: Do You Have Enough Influence to Get the Job? http://bit.ly/9Fnobv (by @michelletripp)
If anyone else out there has one, feel free to post it as a comment! The more links we have, the better!
Thank you, Erica, for the shoutout on my “Kloutgate: The Battle Between Mean Girls and Influencers” blog post! I truly appreciate your support!
Alli, nice to meet you!
How I missed out as being a brilliant blogger is mind boggling. Joe Fernandez called this post about Klout ‘great.’ http://jimmitchem.posterous.com/how-a-little-klout-goes-a-long-way Clearly, I wrote this post about Klout WAY too early for it to be popular (6 December)
Didn’t mean to miss you, Jim! Thanks for sharing your link!!
Okay – I’m not one usually to toot my horn but Joe Fernandez too came out and said this was an “awesome post” : http://offthegrid-pr.com/socially-responsible-pr/2011/1/20/klout-critics-time-to-close-the-door-or-kick-it-wide-open.html .
Note I also keep a running list of blogs on klout out on http://bit.ly/fJOtbO but you’ve really got many of the great ones in here.
Awesome resources! Thanks for sharing, Lisa!
Thanks for including my blog post about Klout on the list. Can’t wait for Blog World West…speaker proposal to be sent soon!
The measurement of influence and @Klout have been a hot topic these days on the twitter streams. – Yes -> You have an outstanding collection of bloggers you feature. Very nice!
Hi Alli -thanks very much for the mention, Klout seems to be a subject that appears every couple of months and always stirs up opinion – personally I feel that it’s developing tool but it never pays to try and over simplify these things, eventually it will certainly be valuable as a benchmark system but there’s a lot of semantic development to go before we get there,
Thanks again – very pleased to be in with such illustrious company!
Matt.
Great list!
I wrote this post called “The One Thing Klout Is Not” which parked Olivier’s post:
http://moradpour.com/2011/02/20/the-one-thing-klout-is-not/
It was part of #usguys’s #usblog theme blogging this weekend, many of which are in your list. Here’s the wrap-up:
http://moradpour.com/2011/02/20/usblogs-week-3-round-up-building-your-offline-klout/
Cheers 🙂
Tom
Sparked, not parked!
Thanks for linking us to some more great resources, Thomas!
Now that Google Search Results show who shared what articles on social media sources, there is no doubt that at some point Klout will become a factor on whether your profile is listed as one who shares articles online. Having your profile show up in a Google search next to a search result can be a huge benefit for recognition and awareness and having a high Klout can give you an “air” of authority (though sometimes even when you don’t really have one).
Hi Alli – My thoughts on klout (and peer index) from an earlier post this year: http://timsstrategy.com/how-to-measure-your-online-influence/
Had read Neal Schaffer’s post (he’s great) but many others here I hadn’t seen. Thanks!
Thanks for the link, Tim!
Hey – Thanks for including me in the list – really appreciate that. I’ll also check out the many links being pointed to in the comments section! Wow!
I wrote an article entitled “Do you know and understand your klout” – http://wrightcreativity.com/2010/10/do-you-know-and-understand-your-klout/ which raised a lot of great discussion points through the comments!
Thanks for the link, Kirsten! I love it when people chime in with great comments to add to the discussion.
Thanks for including Curt Finch’s article on Klout from Inc.com. Curt brilliantly blogs about many interesting topics over at Inc, so keep watching! http://www.inc.com/author/curt-finch
If Influence score is like FICO score for your online social influence. You need multiple Influence scores from different measuring platforms to measure your own success online just like the credit monitoring industry. Klout is one score, you might like to find out your SocialIQ score at http://SocialIQ.co/, which has a totally different approach compared to Klout. It can be done!
if you wanna stay up to date on Klout happenings, follow my blog http://whattheklout.virb.com/