By: Garin Kilpatrick
Klout has netted two rounds of investment totaling $10 million, which is why I am surprised that their site has been a bit glitchy for me from time to time. Nonetheless Klout has become a standard of social media influence online so I have created this article for you if you are one of the many people who want to increase your klout score.
At first I was skeptical about Klout but since then I have taken a liking to the site as I have used it to discover some different ways to re-discover people in my network and increase my influence.
My Klout score is 71 and Klout calls me a “Thought Leader,” which is cool. At first I thought 71 was a low score, but then when I compared my score to some business leaders I was surprised to find that most people on my twitter list of influential people scored lower than me.
I saw a tweet from Jay Goldman several months ago complimenting the fact that more and more digital professionals are including their Klout score on their resume. Turns out your Klout score can help you net a job!
Since Klout claims to be the standard for influence I thought it would be interesting to see how some of the people from my Twitter influencers list stacked up.
The first surprising Klout score I found was from Twitter co-founder @ev. Despite having over 1.4 million followers Evan is still six points behind me.
Evan has 6,300+ tweets compared to my 8,800+. The difference between us is that I probably have more retweets, since I position my tweets and content for maximum retweetability, whereas Evan is probably not trying to get as many retweets as possible.
One of the next influencers from my list is WordPress founder Matt Wullenweg.
Matt is so influential I am using his software to publish this very blog post. Millions of wordpress blogs have a link to his blog via the Hello Dolly plugin.
The influence Matt has had on the web is massive; WordPress is being installed into 22% of all new domains on the web, and that is just one of several impressive WordPress stats. Most of my websites are built on WordPress because I like the huge collection of awesome plugins the WordPress community has to offer.
Awesome as Matt is, he is not a social media pro; he does not use a pic of his face for his Twitter avatar, and his social media time is spread thin. Matt has several brands to watch over, such as the official @ WordPress account, which also has a Klout score of 64. I mentioned @Wordpress in a tweet a while back and got a reply from Matt via his personal twitter account @photomatt.
The last Klout score I found surprising was Google’s Eric Schmidt. I know Eric has not been the CEO of Google since Larry Page took the reins, but as the Executive Chairman of the biggest website on the internet I’m sure he still has plenty of influence.
Now that Klout has Google+ integration Eric’s score might go up if he connects his Google+ account!
Eric’s low score is probably due to his highly infrequent tweeting.
How To Step Your Klout Score Up
Klout is growing at a steady pace and with all of the social sharing hooks they have in place it is only become more important as more people discover, use, and share the site.
A factor that has a strong influence over your Klout score is your posting activity, specifically your tweeting. I have tweeted more times than the three other influential people mentioned above, which partially explains my higher Klout score.
There are 3 Factors Effecting Your Klout Score
- How many people you influence (True Reach)
- How much you influence them (Amplification)
- How influential they are (Network Score)
All three of these factors are contingent on your actions and participation in social media, specifically tweeting.
If you have plenty of tweets and are re-tweeted on a regular basis there is a good chance that you have a fairly high score already.
One way to increase your amplification, and get more retweets, is to schedule your tweets so that they are spaced out with your best tweets going out at the busiest times.
Hootsuite enables you to schedule your tweets for any time you want, and the Twitter Tools buffer takes it one step further by allowing you to quickly add a tweet to your buffer without having to specify a time for the tweet to go out.
By spacing your tweets out you will get more retweets, and less people unfollowing you.
The more you build your follower base the more your true reach will increase, as long as you are building real connections with people.
If you want to build your following check out my article about 50 innovative tips for getting more followers.
Reply to People When They Tweet You
Building genuine connections and relationships are what is going to help you get your score up.
The more people you have relationships with the more people there are who are likely to retweet your golden content, when you post it.
Content is King
Content is king today more than ever. If you publish awesome content and make it easy for people to share there is a good chance that they will. If you are publishing on your own blog make sure you have social sharing plugins. On this blog, and most of my blogs, I use digg digg and sexy bookmarks.
Even if you are publishing on someone else’s site you can use a Twitter tool called click to tweet to link your content text with a click to tweet custom retweet link.
Engage With Influencers to Increase Your Klout Score
If you engage with influential people their influence will accrue to you as you exchange tweets with them.
Use classic style retweets to do this, where the tweet starts with RT @Username. If you just use the new style “one click” retweets then the person you are retweeting might overlook you if they get many RT’s. Mentioning the person you are retweeting gets you into their conversational stream every time you help them out by sharing their tweets.
Even influential people feel obliged to respond to someone persistently trying to contact them and will often retweet you back and this can get your tweet in front of their huge following – and this can help you increase your klout score significantly.
Ask Questions
Asking questions on social media sites like Twitter is a great way to spark the engagement that leads to a climbing klout score.
Help Other People
Reciprocity is an essential weapon of influence that can accelerate your klout success. If you want people to retweet you, start by retweeting them. If you want people to follow you, start by following them.
Leverage Trending Topics and Viral Content
If you jump in on trending topics these can help you get retweets and build connections with new people since these streams are highly visible. Posts about social media spread well on social media, so keep that in mind and keep quality content on your radar.
I use a Twitter list I created called awesome content to keep track of people sharing cool content on Twitter, and I use Google Reader to keep track of every cool blog I find.
Be Bold
Fortune favors the bold. Klout does not measure whether or not people like what you say, only if they share it. Don’t fear controversy, it has elevated more than a few bloggers to internet fame.
Speak your mind and although people will not always agree with you, you will gain respect for voicing your opinion.
Retweet This Post
You should retweet this post because if you do there is a good chance your followers will retweet you. Also, if I notice you retweeted me I will follow you and send you a tweet saying thanks.
Update
Today (August 14th, 2012) Klout changed their algorithm.
Click the image below for more information Understanding the Klout score.
How Do You Increase Your Klout?
Let us know in the comments if you have any thoughts about klout, or tips for getting a better klout score.
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