How to Take Command of Your Klout Online Influence Score? RTFM.

A guy walks into a bar and asks a girl for her Klout Score. What is that happened? Might as well, since Klout is being integrated into websites like Huffington post, but more importantly business tools like Gist, Radian, Exact Target, StockTwits and others. Klout may be quaint, but while its influence is rising, is your’s?

Klout is one of the most well known online influence measuring systems. Klout gives a Klout Score to your online presence based on the social networks and web services you use and supports: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogspot, Last.fm and Flickr.

Beyond the Basics

What am I saying? You’ve probably already registered for Klout and added all the profiles you have. If you haven’t, you should. Since most Klout users will just load in their profiles and then log in from time to time, you can do much more. Why? Well, as I stated, Klout is being integrated into apps where it will influence if people not only follow you, but also contact you about business opportunities. While Klout might not land you that dream job, it can actually help.

Lets hack it…

Klout-2-3

How many people you influence; (True Reach)
How much you influence them; and (Amplification)
How influential they are (Network Score)

Your ultimate goal is to influence a large number of very influential users all the time, across your networks. Ideally, you would have an audience that includes other people with high Klout scores that the service deems “influential”. Ok, so first of all, invite all your friends and fans to start using Klout. This way Klout can see how influential they are, giving you an audience of at least a bit more influential users.

Klout = TR * AM * NS

Measuring Your Klout

Our philosophy is that influence is the ability to drive action so we focus on tangible indicators of influence like @mentions, retweets, likes, and comments. Your influence is relative; the Klout score takes into account how your level of influences compares with the rest of the Klout user population.

Regardless if you’re using YouTube or Twitter, Klout makes a point of scoring you based on the the number of reactions. Twitter retweets, Facebook likes, YouTube comments, etc. Since Klout measures your score based on the wider Klout user community, you “just” have to get more reactions than other Klout users. Since most “Klouters” use Twitter a lot, but not for example YouTube, you should build your influence if possible through those networks that others won’t. A kind of Klout score backdoor.

Klout = TR (TW+FB+YT+…) * AM * NS

Sentiment Doesn’t Matter

If you are driving action in a given topic, you have influence in it. We judge quality of content by the reactions it produces, not by their sentiment.

If you look at your Klout dashboard, Klout will assign a couple of topics you’re most influential  about. For example, I’m a pundit in regards to social media and Apple. These topics are not only popular but Klout can easy track them. If you look at the list of Klout’s top users, most are influential about… influential topics.

And it doesn’t matter what you say, if people react to it. Yes, you can be negative and conservative, Klout will count that as influential since it doesn’t can’t measure sentiment precisely.

Klout = (TR (TW+FB+YT+…) * AM * NS) * 🙂

How Many Retweets?

Your Amplification is how much you influence people. When you post a message, how many people respond to it or spread it further? If people often act upon your content you have a high Amplification score.

Amplification is most important for social networks like Twitter. You want users to not only retweet your content but have it retweeted by their followers as well.

Klout = (TR (TW+FB+YT+…) * AM * NS) * 🙂

Your Influential “Friends”

Your Network indicates the influence of the people in your True Reach. How often do top Influencers share and respond to your content? When they do so, they are increasing your Network score.

Basically, Klout bases your influence on a social media equivalent of a buddy-buddy system. To be a top influencer in the eyes of Klout’s algorithm, you have to be recommended by other top influencers.

Yep, you want Klout users more influential than yourself responding to your content. Take a day or two and make yourself a special Twitter or Facebook list of influential users and then create content you know they will share to their own users. Not only will this help your Klout score, it might get you some new fans.

Klout = (TR (TW(Y*NS)+FB(Y*NS)+YT(Y*NS)+…) * AM) * 🙂

LinkedIn, Foursquare…

For instance, you may not use Twitter or Facebook that much, but have a rich and engaged network of professional contacts on LinkedIn. There is no risk that your Klout will go down.

In Foursquare’s “tips” we’ve found a wealth of data on how our users drive a very important action: purchases. In most cases tips inform users how best to spend their money – we’ve included some examples below.

Klout knows what most of its users are using various web services for. So while you might try tweeting and posting status on some networks, you should do something else on Linkedin or Foursquare. Connections and tips, eh? Browse your social networks and see what it means to be influential. Use that specific metric to increase the influence of that particular profile, which will then help your Klout score.

Klout = (TR (TW(Y*NS)+FB(Y*NS)+YT(Y*NS)+LI (C*!)…) * AM) * 🙂

Okay, so while I might be joking about the formula, it’s somewhat accurate. So what do you need to do if you want a really high Klout score:

• Connect all the services Klout supports (or create them now and then connect);
• Get influencers to follow you on the various services in any way you can;
• Create content you know they will share, comment or like;
• Follow topics and create content that will either positively or negatively shock users into reacting
• Do it every single day again and again.

Klout system is pretty hard to game because it makes you really work for your Klout score so there’s really no way to get a 100 easily. What you can do is mix and match the services you want to use and then supercharge them. See you in the Klouts!