How-to Use Klout: The Ultimate Social Measurement Tool

By: Susan Gilbert

What if you could showcase your expertise in a tangible way, would you want to? Would you like to stand out from the sea of competitors on the Internet and social sphere? Would you like to become the go-to person in your niche? My guess is that most of you answered: “Yes!” to all three.

Engaging properly with social media and knowing how-to use Klout, which is a free tool, to help you monitor how well you are doing, will help you to increase your social media influence and dominate your niche. Acquiring a boatload of clients through your social media efforts can happen if you have a strong online presence in your niche, and are very influential.

Back in 2008 social media blossomed into a must-have for brands, authors, businesses, faith-based organizations, politicians, celebrities, and anyone with a product or service to sell. The need to track and record the activity became obvious to founder, Joe Fernandez. Klout was created as a way to show others how effective you are in interacting and what is being shared from your social networks. Klout provides a metric, or a score, on a scale 0 to 100, which is prominently displayed on a profile whether you join the service or not. This score is not about how many fans or followers you have– it’s a measurement of your social influence.

Why Social Measurement Matters

If you have accounts on the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Foursquare, and YouTube, your activity is being recorded.

As your online persona grows Klout calculates your level of activity and with whom you are connecting. This score reflects your social media influence. Klout takes into consideration not only with whom you communicate; but, also how well people respond with you. For example, when you share something on social media that generates a response – retweet, share, like, favorite, comment – that’s considered influence. Your interaction is calculated over a 90 day average and can fluctuate daily based on your activity.

Over the last two years Klout has made some vast improvements and have added services such as Klout Experts where you can answer questions that post directly to Bing and Klout for Business. This is another powerful tool that will help you connect with other high level influencers. More and more companies and potential clients are turning to Klout to find out how an individual, brand or company is measuring up.

How-to Use Klout

It’s easy to get started with Klout, and you can start measuring your influence today. Here are several tips to start with:

Connect all of your major social media networks with Klout. Signup begins with Twitter or Facebook, and takes less than a minute to do. Right now Facebook and Twitter are at the top of the list for measurement, but your score will increase as more connections are made.

Search for Klout users in your niche. Use Klout’s search tool or look for others who are already in your social networks, and follow them in social media. The beauty of Klout is that you can create topics to match your interests. Give out what is called a +K for other people’s topics, which can be sent out as a tweet or a post to that individual. As you give, you shall receive, and this factors into your Klout score.

Stay active and involved in social media. Share only what is interesting, fun, relative, or ask questions and create contests to get more people involved in your community.

Create a list of influencers. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, you can create your own list of those you follow who are the most influential to you. This is a great way to reach out via Twitter and Facebook and announce your list.

Track your progress daily. Because social media is constantly generating new information, you will need to stay on top of your own activity and what others are saying about you. Many times you will discover mentions on Twitter and sometimes Facebook. The settings tool in Klout will also display any +K’s from other users that you can reply to as a thank you.

Just like any other social network, your Klout influence will grow over time. Take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy the journey of establishing yourself as an expert in your niche, and watch your community expand.

Win a Free Book!

We’re giving away ten copies of Susan Gilbert’s new eBook, “KLOUT SCORE: Social Media Influence, How to Gain Exposure and Expand Your Klout Score.” Leave a comment sharing what influences you and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win through 11:59PST Monday, November 11th. Random winners will be drawn and notified by email.

Meet Guest Blogger: Susan Gilbert

Susan Gilbert uses her laser focus knowledge to coach and provide online marketing and social sharing programs for authors, speaker, experts and small businesses. An entrepreneur since 1987, Susan has evolved years of traditional business experience into several cutting edge projects which includes her digital marketing company, Online Promotion Success. Author and publisher of several books including “The Land of I Can,” and “KLOUT SCORE: Social Media Influence, How to Gain Exposure and Increase Your Klout,” Susan combines online marketing with strategic thinking to create successful programs. Working most often with authors and entrepreneurs, she understands promotion at a personal level as a regularly quoted resource in USA Today, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine and many more.

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