There has been a lot of speculation and debate concerning the merits of participating on Klout. Klout measures social influence and until now, most have not taken it seriously, citing that the Klout algorithm is not accurate and does not reflect true social influence. Following recent announcements from Klout, I believe that general sentiment around Klout is about to change. Here are the reasons.
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1. Social signals increased to 400
Klout has increased the number of signals from 100 to 400 from seven social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. The signals include Twitter mentions, followers, replies and retweets, Facebook wall posts, comments, mentions and Likes, LinkedIn job title, recommendations and connections. As opposed to 1 billion pieces of informatiom, Klout now pulls 12-billion pieces of information per day!
2. Klout has capped the K+
Besides social signals, users can add topics where they believe people are influential. People can vote on areas of influence by clicking on the K+. This is open to abuse because people “game the system”. Klout has announced that is has capped the amount K+ can grow Klout scores, to prevent abuse.
3. Klout adds Wikipedia influence
If you are mentined in Wikipedia and that page ranks high on Google, this will have a positive effect on your Klout score. Because of this significant change, Barack Obama’s score increased by 5 and Justin Bieber’s score reduced by 8! Additonal links to your Wikipedia page will further improve your score.
4. Klout Moments
Klout users will be able to use Moments to measure the result of a tweet or a Facebook update by viewing retweets and replies, discussions on Facebook. Moments will only be available to all Klout users in coming weeks.
For those that still question whether Klout adds any value, they should ask the question why nearly every one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencers in the United States participate on the platform?
