Klout (n.) – The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure True Reach: How many people you influence; Amplification: How much you influence them; Network Impact: The influence of your network.
Not everyone is a member of Klout and is not required to be either but can apparently still have influence in the Klout network and be labeled one of the Top Influencers in the Klout system.
Klout has been in the news recently due to its change in the scoring algorithm they use to determine your influence across several networks based on the definition above. Many users also got a bump in their scores in the last week or so when Klout added Google+ measurements to the calculations.
I was building a list on Klout this past weekend and noticed that some of the individuals I was adding were not members of the Klout system. They did have profiles available – in fact every twitter user I wanted to add had one – they were just not signed up as members of Klout itself.
So today I decided to do a little unofficial research and get an idea of just how many Top Influencers are not members of Klout. Top Influencers are selected by Klout and another category of Klout profiles, Top +K Recipients are determined by how many +K’s, or Klout, they get from other Klout members.
For my unscientific survey I went to the Klout Featured Topics page and used those main categories and the three sub-categories for each main topic as my pool of data. There are other topics than these on Klout but since this is their page I used it instead of my own collection of topics chosen randomly.
Here is the break down of who has or does not have accounts on Klout between Top Influencers and Top +K Recipients in the topics from the graphic above. All of the sub-categories have been added to the main topics numbers.
- Entrepreneurship (Angel Investors, Sales, Conferences): 11 of 40 Top Influencers or 28% do not have accounts; 40 of 40 or 100% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Movies (Films, Celebrities, Comedy): 23 of 40 Top Influencers or 58% do not have accounts; 32 of 40 or 80% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Fashion (Beauty, Jeans, Models): 20 of 34 Top Influencers or 59% do not have accounts; 38 of 40 or 95% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Music (MTV, Entertainment, Miley Cyrus): 33 of 40 Top Influencers or 83% do not have accounts; 29 of 40 or 73% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Sports (World Cup, FIFA, ESPN): 25 of 33 Top Influencers or 76% do not have accounts; 27 of 40 or 68% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Food (Steak, Recipes, Health Food): 13 of 32 Top Influencers or 41% do not have accounts; 36 of 39 or 92% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Travel and Tourism (Outdoors, Hotels, Las Vegas): 13 of 40 Top Influencers or 33% do not have accounts; 40 of 40 or 100% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Technology (Apple, iPhone, Laptops): 14 of 30 Top Influencers or 47% do not have accounts; 31 of 40 or 78% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
- Health (Gym, Dieting, Running): 12 of 40 Top Influencers or 30% do not have accounts; 38 of 40 or 95% of Top +K Recipients have accounts.
Note: Two topics had no Top Influencers (Laptops and Gym); three topics had less than the default ten Top Influencers (Jeans, FIFA, Health Food); one topic had less than the default ten Top +K Recipients (Health Food).
A quick snapshot of the above broken down by Top Influencer and Top +K Recipients shows that only 50% of Top Influencers on Klout have accounts while 87% of Top +K Recipients have Klout accounts. There was some cross over where a person was on both the Top Influencer list and the Top +K Recipient list.
So with the numbers crunched what does this all mean? Well for me I am going to actually be looking to the Top +K Recipients as having a larger influence in their respective topics because other Klout users have given them +K, or Klout, in those topics. Top Influencers may have a broad audience of influence but in this day and age interaction in any venue is paramount to building trust and those who receive +K from their followers are making an impact that results in that individual taking the time to visit Klout and give them that Klout. I also wonder why some of these Top Influencers, many of which are pretty big companies and individuals, are not allowing Klout to be one of their tools for working with their followers.
To me that interaction makes all the difference in the world. What do you think?