Have you been put in Klout timeout?

As soon as I learned this was happening, I deleted my klout profile. I'm no one's mean girl. I talk to everyone. I don't care how "influential' someone thinks they are. You never know when your next great connection is going to happen or who is going to bring it. I'd rather have real engagment with folks than to be beholden to klout give me a number for doing what they want me to do and being what they want me to be. No thanks! :-)

Klout isn't in the business of measuring social media influence...they are in the business of selling advertising.  They don't care one iota about your falling score and nobody else should either.  It means nothing.

My Klout score has been dropping every day since their "improvement," and the reason is always the same: Those who "I influence" have gone down in score too.  So prepare for a giant sucking sound as I bring down those connected to me and they bring down those connected to them, etc. to infinity.

Klout is not the only influence measurement available. Check out PeerIndex.net @PeerIndex - you may find you like their measurement better and they are far more likely to listen to us. 

We don't get all that excited about Klout scores going up or down....the interesting question to us is how is Klout going to monetize it's model.....will Klout be for sale...in other words is it going to be possible to purchase Klout if you have a budget to the detriment of those that acquire Klout by being clever. Understanding their business model is going to be way more telling than their score algorithim will be on a good day. 

Jure, in response to #22, Klout is relative on a daily basis. If you're communing with President Obama one day, and feeding the hungry the next day, yes, your Klout will likely drop. Klout isn't called Humanitarian, it's called Klout. It measures your clout, not your worth to the world. If you're seeking notoriety based upon the world's definition of importance, then you'll be rated on those terms. Klout is a measure of your influence to spread your word. If someone with high Klout is spreading your vision, then you have clout, and a high Klout score. If you're helping to feed millions but no one knows about it, you don't have clout, but yet you helped millions live another day. What's more important to worry about? As far as working with clients goes, yes, a Klout above 30 is important to give yourself some credibility. But once your score reaches above 50, there really isn't much difference, and certainly much less to be concerned about, between this score and that score.

Yet, isn't that how we in general rate someone's clout? Why do we admire actors? They pretend for a living, make millions, and we freak out at the first opportunity to catch a glimpse of them. Why? Because they don't commune with the common folk. Why is Klout a dirivitive of the word clout, if not for its attempt to rate us compared with the general trend we all have at judging each other?

I am waiting for Megan's answer... #OccupyKlout

Hey Jure,   You misunderstand, let me clarify further. I apologize if I was unclear. *We look at your ability to drive actions, not your own actions when measuring your Klout. Whether you tweet Barack Obama, Lady Gaga or your neighbor with a Score of 10 -- this has no impact on your Score.  * When someone does take action (i.e. engage with you) based on your content, that ALWAYS helps your Score. ALWAYS, even if they have a low Score. 

  Hey  Jure,   We believe everyone has Klout and when *anyone* interacts and takes actions based on your content it has a positive impact on your Klout. Yes, if your content gets acted upon by Barack Obama or Lady Gaga this impacts your Klout more, intuitively we believe this makes sense. But, you are never penalized when low Klout Score people engage with you -- that is always a net positive.   As for the example you bring up here in particular -- your network impact score was going down, which does indicate that fewer highly influential people were engaging with you. If you are regularly getting your content retweeted by top influencers and that stops, yes it will impact your Score -- but it's not because you are being penalized for the engagement from others (any action driven based on your content helps your Score), it's because of the lack of action from top influencers.    If any of this is unclear, I'd be happy to clarify more. It is similar to in Google PageRank, how getting linked to from any site is good, but getting linked to from high impact sites means more.   Thanks, Megan Berry Marketing Manager, Klout megan@klout.com

  I am slowing coming to terms that my Klout score has dropped by over 15 points recently. Partly because I have tweeted exactly half as much in October as I did in August / September. This blog post answers a lot for me, how blind was I to see? Helping new people in my network on twitter has made me less of a man! Anni – your comments about Netflix CEO... – I get you! There was a podcast earlier in the year where Avinash from Google talked about CEO’s having “the web in their blood” – or not as the case maybe. You have to REALLY believe in the internet and the power of the human spirit rather than want to start a web business and cash in. I strongly think what happens is that companies “loose it” on the way up – Radian6 is losing its youthful funky vibe now salesforce is “eating it “ and tungle could have been SO cool and has been eaten by Blackberry. Whether it is business or community everything has to be about the relationship and if you have no community you won’t have any business. ;-(

I received a similar message from Klout after inquiring why my score continued to drop even though I was interacting vs just making posts to gain an "inflated" score.  Needless to say, although this was about a week before the drop in scores, I did  tell them idea of interacting with individuals with high scores to increase mine was absurd.  Like many other social media professionals, I interact with people with lower scores every day.   Their competitor Peer Index may not get as much publicity, but they seem to have their act together.

Thank you for a well written post that generated a discussion on what I was feeling.  I appreciate the discussion thread.

Seems time to put Klout on ignore.  It never meant much to me and now means even less.

So when we support the "less influential" (otherwise known as "might appreciate the support of us, the more influential"), our Klout Network Influence takes a hit.  You have to wonder if they are thinking these things through in Klout.  Or, we might decide that we simply can't trust them to be looking at things the right way...

I for one think that if I mentor and grow some emerging social media rockstars, ninjas, gurus or whatever those labels become in the next 6 months I should get EXTRA Klout credit. I'm responsible for turning lots of people and organizations on to Twitter - YouTube - Blogging - and foursquare. That's influence. Pandering to the echochamber of influencers online for the sake of Klout score just misses the point.  I'm going to be who I'm going to be. If I drop a point here or any ratings change - no big deal. On the otherhand, I could go chasing Justin Bieber and other celebrities with mega influence just to inflate my score -- but that's not my audience and not the point, so I'll pass on chasing a shallow win.

I used to love Klout. I enjoyed how it reflected my engagements and how my Social Media efforts were clearly being represented in the Klout score.  After being dropped down 10 points, I decided that I would treat it like anything else - by giving it the benefit of the doubt. However, after taking a couple of days to see how my engagement is being measured I can't believe that my Klout score continues to drop. After reading your post, I do realize that I spend a lot of time talking with people who are defined by Klout as "Less Influential". I guess I'll become "less influential" then, because I enjoy ALL engagement from ALL people. Not just those with high Klout scores.

At least you got a response.  Pehaps I am in the doghouse and not on a timeout

It happened to me too, its like Digital Mean Girls! 

Love the picture, Jure. It is interesting regarding influence. In my opinion, influence is a better measure if you are a patient coach and influencer of people with scores less than you. This shows that you are taking the time to act as a mentor and "show them the ropes" vs focusing exclusively on your own benefit by interacting w/people with higher influence scores than yourself. Influencing w/"same or higher score" peers also has a closed community feel to it, and that goes against the principles we've been teaching (community, pay it forward, etc).

Man you have got to love that! So unless you are engaging with people who already have influence you aren't an influencer. There's only one response I have to that - what a complete bunch of crap. It's really sad to see a response like that too. Basically they are telling people to form clicks at the highest levels and leave everyone else out. That's why people hate a lot of the "make money online" gurus - they have a click and email the hell out of each others email lists. I've seen the same occur in social media too. It seems that things haven't changed much since high school. You're either in with the cool kids or you're out.

Hi Jure, The Klout situation is really strange. It seems people regard them as the de facto measure of social influence simply because they are the only thing available. I can accept that if a business account suddenly begins interacting with a bunch of porn accounts, that might diminish an overall rating. But like the other comments about Netflix, Klout has wandered far from their original good idea, and away from what people want. Some clever entrepreneur should see how popular Klout is and build a whole new (much better) social influence business/product. Maybe someone is working on that already! Have a great day, Jeff P.S. thanks for using a comment system that doesn't require logging in via Twitter, Facebook ,etc. So many bloggers use annoying comment plugins!

If a retweet from Justin Bieber raises your score by X % than the whole thing is no better than HS cheerleaders in the lunch room.        

Amazing, Jure.  Guess if you had a new client start using social media you would have to make a choice of supporting your client or "working" on your Klout score.  Hmmmmmm There's a no brainer for you. Jure, thanks for always telling it like it is.  That is just one of the many reasons you are so appreciated and why #YouMatter to me and countless others.  ((Hugs)) and aloha.  Janet

For an modern times, internet technology company they have lost the plot - their customer service is appauling, they took between 3 and 4 weeks to respond to emails, as well I would have thought that the ideal behind the original algorhythm was to measure your social influence - now as is the problem with many start-ups & mature corporations it comes down to control and their perception of what is important .. numbers ...- sorry not important - relationships,engagement and communications is what is important For @Klout like #Netflix is all about their own agendas and they have lost their way and their understanding that they are supposed to be enhancing their customers exerience, and therefore need to inclusive and responsive not dictatorial, so they need to be a follower as well of social trends, that we generate ....  they need to listen to their market, which is us .. before they walk away ... fyi I am walking away Bye .. the beauty ofthe internet is that it is responsive to change .. somewhere ... so I will check out more inclusive and responsive companies Regards David @intmf  

I've said all along, they've got an enormous community management issue. It still exist, persists and will be their downfall. They possess no brilliant community management whatsoever, and they're heading the way of Netflix CEO soon. The hauty attitudes (what's their CEO's recent comment about San Francisco??) and their inability to understand that in today's social media scene companies are not going to get away with using us for their own agendas. This cannot and will not sustain itself. I believe at this point, even if they hired a brilliant community manager that due to what they don't understand that they would not allow a gifted professional to start making the necessary changes, repairs and resufacing necessary to rebuild their brand. I saw this happen with another brand that folded not to long after they imploded themselves.  Community management must must MUST be a part of any serious endeavor starting from the ground up. That person must ALWAYS be taking into account the end result on the community at all times, thinking every thought, process, action and utterance forward and back in order to build a cohesive, strong brand. Netflix has failed miserably at this and so has Klout. The current mouth pieces they have are only destroying them further.

As soon as I learned this was happening, I deleted my klout profile. I'm no one's mean girl. I talk to everyone. I don't care how "influential' someone thinks they are. You never know when your next great connection is going to happen or who is going to bring it. I'd rather have real engagment with folks than to be beholden to klout give me a number for doing what they want me to do and being what they want me to be. No thanks! :-)

Klout isn't in the business of measuring social media influence...they are in the business of selling advertising.  They don't care one iota about your falling score and nobody else should either.  It means nothing.

My Klout score has been dropping every day since their "improvement," and the reason is always the same: Those who "I influence" have gone down in score too.  So prepare for a giant sucking sound as I bring down those connected to me and they bring down those connected to them, etc. to infinity.

Klout is not the only influence measurement available. Check out PeerIndex.net @PeerIndex - you may find you like their measurement better and they are far more likely to listen to us. 

We don't get all that excited about Klout scores going up or down....the interesting question to us is how is Klout going to monetize it's model.....will Klout be for sale...in other words is it going to be possible to purchase Klout if you have a budget to the detriment of those that acquire Klout by being clever. Understanding their business model is going to be way more telling than their score algorithim will be on a good day. 

Jure, in response to #22, Klout is relative on a daily basis. If you're communing with President Obama one day, and feeding the hungry the next day, yes, your Klout will likely drop. Klout isn't called Humanitarian, it's called Klout. It measures your clout, not your worth to the world. If you're seeking notoriety based upon the world's definition of importance, then you'll be rated on those terms. Klout is a measure of your influence to spread your word. If someone with high Klout is spreading your vision, then you have clout, and a high Klout score. If you're helping to feed millions but no one knows about it, you don't have clout, but yet you helped millions live another day. What's more important to worry about?
As far as working with clients goes, yes, a Klout above 30 is important to give yourself some credibility. But once your score reaches above 50, there really isn't much difference, and certainly much less to be concerned about, between this score and that score.

Yet, isn't that how we in general rate someone's clout? Why do we admire actors? They pretend for a living, make millions, and we freak out at the first opportunity to catch a glimpse of them. Why? Because they don't commune with the common folk. Why is Klout a dirivitive of the word clout, if not for its attempt to rate us compared with the general trend we all have at judging each other?

I am waiting for Megan's answer...
#OccupyKlout

Hey Jure,

You misunderstand, let me clarify further. I apologize if I was unclear.
*We look at your ability to drive actions, not your own actions when measuring your Klout. Whether you tweet Barack Obama, Lady Gaga or your neighbor with a Score of 10 -- this has no impact on your Score. 
* When someone does take action (i.e. engage with you) based on your content, that ALWAYS helps your Score. ALWAYS, even if they have a low Score. 

Hey  Jure,

We believe everyone has Klout and when *anyone* interacts and takes actions based on your content it has a positive impact on your Klout. Yes, if your content gets acted upon by Barack Obama or Lady Gaga this impacts your Klout more, intuitively we believe this makes sense. But, you are never penalized when low Klout Score people engage with you -- that is always a net positive.

As for the example you bring up here in particular -- your network impact score was going down, which does indicate that fewer highly influential people were engaging with you. If you are regularly getting your content retweeted by top influencers and that stops, yes it will impact your Score -- but it's not because you are being penalized for the engagement from others (any action driven based on your content helps your Score), it's because of the lack of action from top influencers. 

If any of this is unclear, I'd be happy to clarify more. It is similar to in Google PageRank, how getting linked to from any site is good, but getting linked to from high impact sites means more.

Thanks,
Megan Berry
Marketing Manager, Klout
megan@klout.com

I am slowing coming to terms that my Klout score has dropped by over 15 points recently. Partly because I have tweeted exactly half as much in October as I did in August / September. This blog post answers a lot for me, how blind was I to see? Helping new people in my network on twitter has made me less of a man!
Anni – your comments about Netflix CEO... – I get you! There was a podcast earlier in the year where Avinash from Google talked about CEO’s having “the web in their blood” – or not as the case maybe. You have to REALLY believe in the internet and the power of the human spirit rather than want to start a web business and cash in.
I strongly think what happens is that companies “loose it” on the way up – Radian6 is losing its youthful funky vibe now salesforce is “eating it “ and tungle could have been SO cool and has been eaten by Blackberry. Whether it is business or community everything has to be about the relationship and if you have no community you won’t have any business. ;-(

I received a similar message from Klout after inquiring why my score continued to drop even though I was interacting vs just making posts to gain an "inflated" score.  Needless to say, although this was about a week before the drop in scores, I did  tell them idea of interacting with individuals with high scores to increase mine was absurd.  Like many other social media professionals, I interact with people with lower scores every day.   Their competitor Peer Index may not get as much publicity, but they seem to have their act together.

Thank you for a well written post that generated a discussion on what I was feeling.  I appreciate the discussion thread.

Seems time to put Klout on ignore.  It never meant much to me and now means even less.

So when we support the "less influential" (otherwise known as "might appreciate the support of us, the more influential"), our Klout Network Influence takes a hit.  You have to wonder if they are thinking these things through in Klout.  Or, we might decide that we simply can't trust them to be looking at things the right way...

I for one think that if I mentor and grow some emerging social media rockstars, ninjas, gurus or whatever those labels become in the next 6 months I should get EXTRA Klout credit. I'm responsible for turning lots of people and organizations on to Twitter - YouTube - Blogging - and foursquare. That's influence. Pandering to the echochamber of influencers online for the sake of Klout score just misses the point. 
I'm going to be who I'm going to be. If I drop a point here or any ratings change - no big deal. On the otherhand, I could go chasing Justin Bieber and other celebrities with mega influence just to inflate my score -- but that's not my audience and not the point, so I'll pass on chasing a shallow win.

I used to love Klout. I enjoyed how it reflected my engagements and how my Social Media efforts were clearly being represented in the Klout score. 
After being dropped down 10 points, I decided that I would treat it like anything else - by giving it the benefit of the doubt. However, after taking a couple of days to see how my engagement is being measured I can't believe that my Klout score continues to drop. After reading your post, I do realize that I spend a lot of time talking with people who are defined by Klout as "Less Influential". I guess I'll become "less influential" then, because I enjoy ALL engagement from ALL people. Not just those with high Klout scores.

At least you got a response.  Pehaps I am in the doghouse and not on a timeout