Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Let's face it, something isn't right with Klout.

If you're a marketing, public relations, or social media pro, you've been conditioned to recognize influence much like Judge Potter Stuart famously recognized objectionable content: hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

On the surface, Klout is ingenious; it's essentially developed a way to score influence by analyzing some of your online activity (and any related activity from your network) and assign a value from one to one hundred. If you play the Klout game correctly, you receive a high score and loads of freebies. If you choose to sit out the Klout game, your score usually sinks faster than a stone.

Take a moment to dig a little deeper into the Klout phenomenon, however, and you'll see what's missing from the equation. As a fifteen year veteran of internet marketing, social media and related disciplines, I cannot buy into the Klout hype. Our national obsession with our Klout scores is doomed to fade unless we take a more comprehensive approach to identifying true influence....

[Valuable perspective - JD]