I’m going to talk about social media, AGAIN. So, if that’s not your thing – feel free to look away. I’m sure I’ll be back to saying, “Vag It Up” tomorrow. Wait, I just did. Tee, hee, maybe you should keep reading in spite of yourself.
Anyway, I read this book called, “The Tao of Twitter” because anytime I embark on anything I try to fully understand what in the feck I’m doing. In this little gem of a book, which I highly recommend – solely because I like you – the author talks about KLOUT.
Now, I am convinced that it’s best to concentrate on only a couple of social media platforms at a time, so you can get ahead without losing your goddermned mind. I focus on twitter, facebook, my blog, and a touch on pinterest. That’s all I have time for and I barely have time for that.
With that said, THE TAO book focuses on Klout – a platform not always talked about. What Klout.com does is it scores your social media “power” or “influence.” My score lies somewhere around a 67. Sometimes it gets up to a 68, but I find it difficult to get it much higher than that. It’s out of 100 and only 1 person has a 100 score, if you really want to know. (And if you guess who in the comments section I’ll find some sort of prize for you…) Anyway, anything above a 50 is supposed to be sort of good. I had looked at my Klout score before I had read the Tao of Twitter, but didn’t really think much of it. However, the Tao author convinced me that more and more people are going to be looking at. In fact, one day soon, people will be putting it on their resumes.
Well, I did just that. I put it right on my resume. Right at the top. The reason I did that is because when I looked around twitter I constantly saw people with the title, “Digital Marketer” or “Social Media Manager at xx Company” and then their twitter follower. Oddly, that twitter follower number was often EXTREMELY low. So, my Klout score says “MINE IS NOT.”
Don’t get me wrong. I truly do NOT feel that a strong mastery of a platform is all about follower count. I actually think it’s more about interaction and QUALITY of the followers. I think it was Seth Godin who said, “You only need 1,000 true fans.” 1,000 true fans will sustain you and I believe in that. But, regardless, the Klout score idea is an interesting one. It’s as if everyone had a Q rating for their online presence.
Where it gets really interesting is – KLOUT PERKS.
Some cool sh*t that someone received who was not me…
The idea here is that if you have a score over a 50 or so in a certain ‘topic’ companies that want to reach out to your followers GIVE YOU SOMETHING. Say you write a twitter account that consists only of sports movie quotes – Nike might contact you to ‘try out’ their Hoosiers commemorative hi-tops. The idea is you get the hi-tops. You love ‘em. You can’t stop wearing ‘em. You wear ‘em so much that you fall asleep in them. And BECAUSE you love them so much you can’t stop TALKING ABOUT THEM. That’s what Nike wants you to do – talk about the Hoosiers hi-tops. Free products for free publicity. Suffice it to say, I think it’s a cool idea.
My score is not high enough to get a pair of Nikes. It is high enough, however, to qualify for some moo.com business cards and something called, “The Red Bull” bulletin.
There’s only one problem. The moo cards wanted me to pay for shipping, which I didn’t want to do since I had bought cards from them not too long ago, on my own. Had they sent them to me for free – I would’ve talked about them like mad. The Red Bull bulletin, which I believe is a magazine created by Red Bull, NEVER CAME AT ALL.
So, I suppose, in summary — the klout.com perks program will never work IF YOU NEVER RECEIVE THE PRODUCT.
Someone else received this cool stuff from Red Bull, but not me…
I feel a little like a kid waiting for their free cereal prize to come in the mail. Only it never comes, which is like getting stood up by Santa Clause and it makes this blogger feel WEIRD.
Compare that with my great experience when I reached out to Homoquotables on my own. A “pop and pop” operation that sent me some product almost immediately. The end result – I talked about them and talked and talked.
As for Klout, I’ve sent two messages now saying, ‘never received the product’ or ‘didn’t want to pay for shipping’ and received no response. In today’s world it SEEMS like these companies want to have a two-way conversation, but clearly – right now – only one person is talking.
What about you? Have you ever engaged in Klout’s perks? Did you have a similar experience or a better one?
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