Posts in Crowdsourcing

Do Social Influence Metrics Have Klout?

November 11, 2011

When Klout changed their algorithm for social influence scoring at the tail-end of October, a cry went out around the internet as many people saw their Klout scores nose-dive and their egos take a bruising. Some people even said the changes cost them their jobs.

Klout’s new model represents the “biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history,” said Ash Rust, Director of Ranking at Klout on Klout’s official blog, but many influencers begged to differ. Was there much point in influencers jumping to the defence of their previous scores or was it all sound and noise, signifying nothing? Are social influence metrics doing influential users justice and are they providing a true reflection of a person’s influence?

I did a bit of crowdsourcing on Twitter and the consensus wasn’t positive. Most respondents said they only use social influence aggregators to track their own score, while those who use it professionally say they only utilise it to give them a basic idea of someone’s possible influence before looking into their online behaviours manually. (more…)

3 Comments