Electronic word-of-mouth–in the form of high quality content, consistent recommendations, and continuously increasing network size–powers a great reputation and leads to a strong personal brand.
Cheating the system to create an image
For many years, people have tried to cheat the system by using paid tools for Twitter and LinkedIn to create the image of having large networks and hundreds of recommendations. But, as we expected, there’s no substitute for the real thing–you can’t cheat the system. Strong personal brands have high impact–it’s all about quality over quantity.
With significant traction on solid ground, Klout has become the authoritative source to determine the power of your brand and its impact and influence across the web.
Measuring influence
For those of you new to Klout, the tool measures an individual’s influence with complex algorithms that take into account data points from Twitter, Facebook and now LinkedIn to amass an overall score between 1-100.
Who has the highest Klout scores? Um, well, yeah…Justin Beiber comes in at 100. He’s followed closely by Lady Gaga (93), Katy Perry (89) and Barrack Obama (85).
Your Klout score is also associated with a descriptive label from the Klout Influence Matrix, such as “Explorer”, “Broadcaster”, “Activist” and “Networker”. Here’s a graph of the Influence Matrix:
Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga are noted as “Celebrity”, Katy Perry as a “Thought Leader”, and Barack Obama as a “Specialist.”
So–how successful are you at engaging your audience? How big of an impact do your messages have on people? And how is your influence described on the matrix above?
