My friend Trey Pennington just wrote a post on how to increase your Klout score. It’s a great and timely post, as many people are now wondering how to do the same thing. Trey had four tips for increasing your Klout score, but this is the point I wanted to focus on:
Stay away from people who aren’t important. Be careful about who you follow on Twitter. People with low Klout scores and people who are inactive on Twitter can bring you down. Remember the old adage about associations. Klout knows the score of all of your followers. You’re ranked by the company you keep. If you’ll keep company mainly with important people, you can increase your Klout score.
I will play devil’s advocate to this point. When I first started blogging, I had zero visibility in this space, and couldn’t buy the attention of the ‘influencers’. But I had a nice little network of friends that, while they were unknown, helped me by promoting my blog to their small networks. They read and commented on my posts, and I did the same thing on their posts.
Over time, their networks grew a bit, and mine did as well. A few of these friends began to get a bit of notice, maybe even some of you have heard of them, people like Ann Handley, David Armano, and Beth Harte.My point is, if I had let who I interacted with be dictated by their level of visibility, I would have missed out on connecting with a TON of people that while they were ‘unknowns’ at the time, are now the ‘rockstars’ in this space.
This leads to one of the true secrets of connecting with influencers: Connect with them BEFORE they are influential. The first time I read Beth’s The Harte of Marketing blog, my thought was ‘She’s a better blogger than I am!’ So I immediately started telling everyone to check out her blog, because she was amazing. Beth was grateful that I was promoting her to my network, and my network was grateful because I had introduced them to a brilliant marketer. My thought was that eventually, Beth was going to be one of the thought leaders in this space, so why not accelerate that process?
The idea is, don’t connect with people based on their visibility, connect with people based on their smarts. If someone is smart, the visibility and influence will come, why not get there early and lead the parade?
BTW in keeping with this theme, here’s a few smart bloggers I read that you might not know about yet. All are brilliant, so go ahead and connect with them now, before the room gets too crowded:
Margie Clayman: Love Margie’s no-nonsense thoughts on social media. Her writing and approach really reminds me of Shannon Paul’s blog.
David Griner: Great advice on how businesses can use social media, David is especially knowledgeable when it comes to business applications of Facebook. And a helluva nice guy, to boot.
Debra Ellis: Debra comes from a bit different background as many bloggers in this space, as Debra is a direct marketing expert. But she’s a wonderful networker on Twitter, and has a knack for finding the wonderful content and sharing it with others. In addition to the great content she creates on her blog.
So that’s my best advice on becoming influential: Surround yourself with people smarter than you are, and connect your network with those people when you find them. You’ll be smarter as a result, and your network will be grateful to you for introducing them to these smart people.
In that spirit, if you’ve ‘discovered’ a blogger that’s flying under the radar, please tell us about them in the comments.
UPDATE: Trey clarifies in the comments that his post was satirical and that he didn’t mean it to be taken literally. Sorry Trey, didn’t mean to misrepresent what you said! Please read the comments for Trey’s take on the issue.
Spot on, Mack. This is exactly why one shouldn’t discriminate against those who have only a dozen tweets—while they might not be “influential” right now, it’s only fair to give them a chance. We’ve all been beginners. To hell with my Klout score.
I think that the best way to reach the level you desire is to do a little like you do in real life. Choose people that you can help, that can help you and that you have a connection with. When you follow people JUST because of who there are, it will show!
Thanks for bringing up the Klout thing though – I had no idea it even existed until today.
Mack, thank you for going there. Whenever I come across tips like the one you referenced, it just reeks of high school popularity contests. I follow people whose tweets resonate with me, period. I don’t really care how many followers they have or if they are part of the ‘cool crowd.’ In fact, I have no problem unfollowing influencers if their message is no longer resonant with me.
Thanks again for putting this out there. I’ve always enjoyed your writing. 🙂
Thanks Brandon! I have always had a chip on my shoulder about the ‘reaching the influencers’ debate, because when I started blogging, no one knew who I was and I couldn’t buy attention from the ‘A-Listers’. That meant if I was going to ‘get the word out’ about my blog, I had to connect with everyone, regardless of their level of ‘influence’.
That taught me early on that it’s not about connecting with influencers, it’s about connecting with everyone. And it also taught me that I can often learn as much if not MORE from the ‘nobodies’ as I can the ‘influencers’.
Bottom line is find smart people and don’t let them go 😉
Totally agree with you Brandon.
My post is pure satire to set up the conclusion and appeal at the end. Klout and other such measures have little to do with real influence.
I can’t imagine basing my following decisions on Klout scores. There are tonnes of tweeters with high Klout scores that are essentially spammers, completely uninteresting or are virtually inactive. I follow someone because they have something interesting to share or say. Of course if you are doing it right, your Klout score is going to increase organically, regardless.
Totally with you.
The post Mack mentions is pure satire.
The real appeal is in the conclusion—”Don’t worry about your Klout score.” If we’ll just help enough other people get what they want, we’ll have all the real influence we need, and, we won’t need a two-digit ranking to know it.
Remind me again why we care about our Klout score. A higher Klout score does not build an audience, increase traffic of my target or help to attain any goals for me and the company. It does not get me on the A-listers radar which outside of keeping good company and potential business partners (or something of the like), focusing on the A-listers exclusively does not do much but inflate an ego. I adore Chris Brogan because he had been a wonderful friend to me but I do not chase after him and hold on his every tweet to retweet it to increase my Klout score. Again, remind me why we care about Klout scores.
I am a bit shocked or even disappointed in Trey. I like his articles but this one is steering people wrong. I guess it got a lot of reads but credibility is lowered.
Thanks for addressing this Mack and steering people in the right direction to become friends/friendly with people because you like them and not because of some number that I still do not know why we care about it.
PLEASE read my post. It is SATIRE. It’s important to read through to the conclusion. I love Mack and appreciate him for calling attention to the post. This time, though, he’s painted me with the wrong brush.
Please do read the conclusion of my post. My four keys highlight the absurdity of seeking to enhance one’s Klout score.
PLEASE read my post. Thank you.
Thank you for saying this so eloquently Mack. There are a lot of people out there who are ‘popular’ but are not saying anything new. They are certainly not sparking my thinking. I don’t think I’ve ever even considered a follow based on how many friends someone has or how many comments are on their blogs. I like people who make me think, question my beliefs and make me laugh. I love the ones who do all those things.
And a shout out to Beth Harte for turning me on to your blog.
Please don’t follow or engage anyone online or off based upon what you think they can do for you—I totally agree.
My post is satire. I wanted to spotlight the shallowness of trying to enhance a two-digit, artificial ranking. It’s a set up to make an appeal I make over and over again in my blog posts and speeches: Focus on helping other people get what they want and everything else will fall into place.
Trey, impressed you are taking the time to comment on everyone’s comments and invite them over to see the full post. Also impressed at the overall way you are handling the misunderstanding. I’m headed there now. As someone who’s first language is sarcasm I know what it’s like to be misunderstood.
Trey is good people. We can all learn a lot about handling misunderstandings from him.
“And a shout out to Beth Harte for turning me on to your blog.”
Thank you Traci, you just proved the point I was trying to make 😉
You are such a trouble-maker!
Thanks for sharing.
I’m really, really hoping people get the genre of my post: SATIRE. Please encourage folks to read the whole post. My conclusion is that one’s Klout score has nothing to do with real influence, one shouldn’t be concerned about increasing such a score, but instead, should make every effort to use his or her gifts to help other people get what they want.
I end by quoting Zig Ziglar—You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want—and then telling people if they’ll help enough other people, they’ll have all the influence they need.
I would be horrified, chagrined, disheartened, disgusted if people associated with others, online or offline, on the basis of what those people could do for them. I militate against that philosophy non-stop. My blog has quite a few posts regarding valuing, acknowledging, affirming other people.
Please do let people know my post is satire. Thanks.
Sorry Trey, I didn’t pick up on the satire at first, but as we all know I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer 😉 Just added a clarification at the end of the post and invited everyone to read your comments where you clarify what you meant. Sorry again!
You know I love you!
It was a very risky post for me to write; I know. Satire, irony, sarcasm, inuendo, are difficult to pull off online. Were I to present this content in person, my posture, gesture, and vocal tone would let you know I was being sarcastic (or, to use a less negative term, satirical).
Thank you for adding what you added.
PS. If you get a chance, would you take a look at that post again? Especially notice “The key to increasing your influence online” and the paragraphs that follow.
(Oh, and if you could revisit a phrase I’m really proud of, that’d be nice, too. The phrase is “By now you’ve probably picked up on the underlying current—it looks like the Klout-kind of influence is not so much about creating a wave as catching a wave.” I’m proud of that “not so much about CREATING a wave as CATCHING a wave” line.)
Thanks again.
Please don’t follow or engage anyone online or off based upon what you think they can do for you—I totally agree.
My post is tongue-in-cheek. I wanted to spotlight the shallowness of trying to enhance a two-digit, artificial ranking. It’s a set up to make an appeal I make over and over again in my blog posts and speeches: Focus on helping other people get what they want and everything else will fall into place.
Trey, I get the satire in your post, but you DO say this: “Influence is more significant than two digits can capture (though Klout is necessary nonetheless).” That quoted sentence might be the last your readers remember, which sort of dilutes the satire.
Indeed. Please note that “though Klout is necessary nonetheless” is a hyperlink to another post. If you have time, would you read that post too?
I do realize I’m taking a huge risk to make a point. I realize that our age is dominated by 140-character content and 7 second sound bites, and that writing two blog posts on one day to make that point would open the door to being misunderstood. Maybe I SHOULD just stick to what The Guardian newspaper quoted me as saying: “Klout is snake oil.” On the other hand, such a dismissive conclusion wouldn’t foster discussion or inquiry about the concept.
Klout is getting a massive amount of press. Companies are relieved to have a simple measure to sum up all of social media for them. THAT’S BAD. VERY BAD. IF companies STOP with a number such as Klout, they’ll stop investing into the infrastructure to leverage social media. A huge portion of that investment should go to LISTENING and FOSTERING UNDERSTANDING. Klout gives them an out so they can just keep doing what they’ve also done—frequency and repetition of an outgoing message.
Kimmo and Trey: I think there IS value in a service such as Klout, but I fear that the natural human response will be to game the system. And Trey a big reason why I wanted to write this post is because I *have* heard people tell me that a way to raise your Klout score is to only follow and interact with people with scores as high or higher than yours. You have clarified that you didn’t actually mean that, but many people do believe that.
As I’ve said before, I think companies need to spend less time trying to connect with influencers, and far more time trying to connect with their own evangelists. These are people that have a VESTED INTEREST in promoting the company, whereas an influencers’ main desire in promoting a company will likely be tied to whatever toy they can get for doing so.
Trey — I read the “though Klout…” post, yes. But the point here is, how many actually did? As we know, if something can be misunderstood, it will. That’s probably why copywriters are instructed to write so that an 8-year-old can figure out what’s being said. (Slight exaggeration.) To avoid all misunderstanding, I get your point and sarcasm, it’s just that many people obviously didn’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have to explain.
Mack — I agree to an extent. I think people in general are far too interested in all descriptions of “top” lists but it’s good to have some kind of metric by which to judge whether someone has substance. There are two flaws, in my opinion: 1) the algorithms are based on assumptions that may unfairly discriminate against some people, and 2) as you say, there will always be those who try to game the system for undeserved advantage.
Thanks Kimmo.
Klout…a little like high school…
Your point is well made – to influence, one must first have been influenced…and who better to be influenced by but by those on their way up…and you get the ancillary benefit of seeing how they are learning to climb so well…
Klout — a LOT like high school! My thought exactly! And woe betide those for whom that was the high point of their lives…
Wow, Mack. I am so entirely humbled, touched, pleased, and downright thrilled to be mentioned by you in this way. A million times thank you!!
You are very welcome Margie, it’s an acknowledgement that’s long overdue!
Mack,
Is this what we’ve come down to? Speculating on the perceived “likelihood of influence” of those we follow? Maybe we should hire “Follower Brokers” to give us the “skinny” on up-and-coming tweeps? Way too much is being made of “online influence” which for most people will ultimately prove worthless unless one can generate a positive action with said influence. Not everyone we follow is gonna end up an “influencer” (a word most people don’t even know what it means) nor should we follow with the hopes they someday will.
I also found it interesting that you’d call a post “great and timely” that featured “Get more people to appear to pay attention to you than you’re paying attention to” as one of it’s keys to gaining influence. Doesn’t this kind of go against a lot of what I’ve heard you preach on twitter when it comes to follower/following counts? By praising such a blog post that, unbeknownst to you at the time, was satirical in nature, don’t you do a disservice to your readers by allowing them to believe that such a method has any real value?
I must say, I’m a bit disappointed.
Hey Dan! Klout is very popular right now, and I believe it’s imperative that companies understand why it is, and what people are saying about it. I believe Trey’s post (and the comments there) are valuable in that Trey raises a lot of points about the service that companies need to consider.
As for the point you highlighted, since you read my post, I will assume you had to know I don’t agree with that approach?
Great post Mack. Really enjoyed it. I think a lot of people are really starting to work on their Klout scores, and a lot of “false” Klout is going to be created out there. I think people really need to stop worrying so much about klout and really use social tools for a purpose other than trying to make it look like they are more important than they actually are. If people provide quality insight and interesting posts, I follow them. Period.
A most excellent point: “people need to stop worrying so much about Klout and really use social tools for a purpose other than trying to make it look like they are more important than they actually are.” Well said.
All this discussion of Klout and satire is really cluttering up what was obviously meant to be a discussion of how awesome I am.
In all seriousness, though, thanks for including me in the post, Mack. I’m personally happy to always toil in relative obscurity, but it means a lot that I have the respect of friends like you.
All my best,
David G.
David, that’s just what Mack was telling me offline. He said, “Trey, man, you’re messing this up. This was supposed to be all about David.” My bad. Heading over now to see how to have more fun with the new Facebook Page photostrip.
Hi Mack,
Thank you very much for your kind mention in the post. I took some time away from the computer for a while and came back to find this. I’m honored to be included.
See you at #blogchat!
Well I really don’t care about influence of people when I choose to connect/interact with them. I go by heart, so to say. It’s pretty easy to understand from one’s stream if he’s gonna end up being a good or bad connection, influence really plays no role in my choice.
Sorry for being late to this cool party. I have been catching up from a road trip. Kudos to you Mr Mack for identifying some very cool people that you interact with and have watched their networks grow. Also kudos to you Trey for creating some satire. I love it! Too much chatter out there that make me feel that Klout scores are like sororities in college. Only the cool cats get to be part of the club which is bull. Make your own club, dress in togas and have a blast online. Thanks for keeping it real Mack
I couldn’t agree with you more! Even as Chris Brogan says, “little bloggers grow up to be big bloggers”. Discriminating against people because of their follower counts makes me angry. This isn’t high school.
If people are nice, I interact. If people are helpful, I interact. If people are interesting, I interact. That should really be the end of it. I’m so sick of people using quantity as a measurement instead of quality.
I have a wonderful network of people online and each one of them brings something unique into my world. Isn’t that really what it’s all about? 😉
Hey Amber! I think the biggest advantage of Twitter is its power as a networking tool. And as you said, even if someone has a ‘small’ network today, tomorrow might be a different story. When you start letting numbers or size of followers dictate who you will or will not interact with, you are setting yourself up for failure, IMO.
Totally agree with you. Mack wrote this before digesting the whole post. If you have time, please read the entire post Mack references. You’ll see that I am actually poking fun at those who do use quantity, and even measures like Klout, to influence their interactions with human beings. Mack rightfully points out one point that is offensive. The truth is, all four keys should be equally offensive to anyone who actually cares about other people. Social media, and life, is all about other people.
Thank you Jonathan. Using satire in social space is dangerous, but I felt it was worth the risk in order to focus attention on the absurdity of chasing numbers. I was way too right on the risky nature—too many people only skimmed my post and missed the big point (which is bluntly stated in the last paragraph). Nonetheless, the post stimulated much needed discusion and introspection, thanks primarily to Mack’s attention to the topic.