What does Klout mean for your Social Media accounts?

What is Klout?

If you use any form of social media management, or you’re listed on any sort of social media ranking list (Like Estate Agent Networking’s Top 1,000 Agents) you’ve probably seen the term “Klout score” floating around. It’s everywhere, but it’s not something those outside of social media management are particularly aware of what it means. And why should you care? What impact does it have on you?

Klout has been around for years and whether you know it or not, you have a Klout score. The only way you’ll not have one is if you specifically opt out. Everyone gets a score out of 100 and the higher your score the more sway you have online. It’s not just an arbitrary score for people to boast about, it’s a cleverly worked out algorithm that collates your entire online presence, from social media all the way through to Wikipedia rankings. Essentially the question Klout answers is, “when you talk, do people listen?”

There’s literally hundreds of metrics that contribute to your Klout, and they’re all things that even without being scored you should be doing. What seeing your Klout score rise will do though is provide you with an idea of how well you’re doing and when you’re improving.

So what can I do to raise my score?

There’s lots you can do to see that score start creeping up, but here’s a few things you can start doing right away to get you on the right track.

Posting engaging content that promotes discussion and sharing is a great way to boost your presence. Whether this is a news piece, some content that you’ve created yourself or just the latest from Grumpy Cat, knowing your audience is key to getting your posts shared around. Having your content shared by your followers will allow your business to reach a new follower base. Potentially this will gain you new followers but at the very least increases your brand awareness.

Engage with everyone! It’s fine jumping on social media just for a natter with your buddies, and once you’ve made a connection it’s great to keep it up, but that’s not going to expand your reach. Ensure you’re following relevant and engaging other accounts, not only to get involved in conversations they start but to see what content they are sharing as that will enrich your own feed. It’s called social media for a reason, be social!

Be consistent. Your social media standing isn’t going to blow up over night, it’s something you’re going to have to work towards (unless you’re Charlie Sheen who amassed over 1 million followers in his first 24 hours. #Winning). Showing up everyday can go a long way to growing your presence and your online community will surely follow. One follow here, a retweet there... as you see your community grow, things will tend to snowball and you’ll quickly be picking up followers in no time!

What’s a good score?

As of the time I’m writing this blog, the Estate Apps Klout score is 52 out of 100. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive does it? However, if you compare that to an average users score of 40, we’ve already managed to push higher than that, and we’re always trying to climb higher.

Achieving that perfect 100 Klout score is almost impossible. Rightmove is one of the most influential accounts in the property industry, and with over 72 thousand followers rightly so! But even with the huge following they have, and their popular #UnrelatedFactThursday generating them interactions on a weekly basis, their Klout score is currently sitting at (a still rather impressive) 80. In fact the only person to ever get the elusive perfect score was Justin Bieber and that took him receiving an average of 30 tweets PER SECOND on his birthday a few years back.

With that all said, we’re pretty happy with our score of 52... for now. We’re always looking to improve, and you should be too! It’s great to aim high, but understanding how Klout works is the way to stay realistic.

So if you’re looking to make the most of your social media, or any form of your digital presence for that matter, get in touch. We’re always happy to see what we can do to help.

(Oh and don’t be too shy to follow us here and like us here, we’ll do our best to provide you with great content for your followers and get your score on the up!).