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Sparkle (1)
51.
There it was staring at me like Santa Clause in a blue polka dot suit...my new Klout score said 51. Granted just literally hours before it was an impressive 65 and now it dropped...eee gads...14 points in a few hours. Hmmm....I double-checked my tweet stream to make sure nothing was lost. I could plainly see my numerous RT's and the back-and-forth social dialogue I was having with those whose scores were higher than mine....one would think you have some sort of influence...right? So how could a score drop that much in such a short period of time?
Ahhhh...what the @#$%^ happened?
I looked at Klout's tweet stream - nothing. I tweeted a question and moments later - there was my response. "@Ad_Chickadee we have a new scoring model release today, see..." and a link to their blog post with the gory details.
"Today we’re releasing a new scoring model with insights to help you understand changes in your influence. This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history"
And then in big bold letters it said...
How will this affect my Score?
A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop. In fact, some of our Scores here at the Klout HQ will drop — our goal is accuracy above all else. We believe our users will be pleased with the improvements we’ve made. Below is a distribution of the Score changes. You’ll note large decreases in Score are rare.
Rare hunh? Judging from Klout's tweet stream since the changes went live - large decreases are in fact not rare. Me thinks the Twittersphere is a buzz almost as much as the 10k tweets per second when Steve Jobs died. At last count there were 187 very upset comments on Klout's blog post not including the numerous "Like" and replies to other tweeps frantic postings.
Think about that for a minute - when was the last time your blog post had...187 comments? Correction - in the time it took me to type that last sentence there are now 195 comments.
Why is this an issue? Well - social media is really still in its infancy. And - there's no "true" social media measurement of your influence...that was until Klout came along and pumped themselves up as "the" social media scoring authority. As a result, brands like Chevy, Subway, Stephen King and many others started flocking -- and partnering in droves -- with Klout.
If you've been fortunate enough to land a Klout Perk - details are listed what you need to be influential about in order to score that Perk and...the score you need. Influential about fashion? Well Macy's offered those gals $25 Macy's gift cards as a Klout Perk during New York Fashion Week.
But it's not just landing Klout Perks...marketer's and PR people now ask what your Klout score is before they work with bloggers. I had a PR gal at BlogHer11 in San Diego just tell me she won't work with bloggers who have a Klout score under 60.
So...if so many folks experienced a significant drop in their score - even gals like Shelly Kramer who Forbes named as one of "the" marketing and social media authorities, saw her score drop 10 points - how will Klout now work with brands to account for this shift that really is not rare? Will they even acknowledge there's an issue with their new modified "more accurate" scoring model when so many folks did in fact see a significant reduction in their score?
Oh and by the way - there are now 295 (and counting) negative comments on Klout's blog post. And social media God Mark Davidson who had an astonishing Klout score of...80 and now has a...60 suggests we opt OUT of Klout. Hmmm...I'm liking his thinking #KloutOptOut
READERS: Did you experience your score dropping, stay the same or increase?
