The Klout Fallacy from Its Marketing Manager Herself

November 11, 2011 by

I hit the Klout jackpot this week. No, my Klout score of 40 isn’t suddenly up. Klout’s Marketing Manager Megan Berry personally left an incredibly insightful comment on my blog. Her comment isn’t gold to me because of the ego boost (O.K., maybe a little). It’s gold because it plainly illustrates the fallacy of Klout’s claim to be “the standard for influence.” Here’s how Berry summarized how Klout scores work:

“1. Influence isn’t about you, it’s about your audience. We believe influence is the ability to drive action. You can tweet, post, blog, and be witty and insightful to your heart’s content, but influence begins when someone takes action on your content. This could be retweeting, commenting, liking, sharing, responding, or doing a handstand of joy (the latter is harder to measure). In reality, you have your audience and connections to thank for your influence. 2. Everyone (and anyone) can help your Klout. Your grandmother liking your Facebook status updates? That’s Klout. Your friend from high school congratulating you on your recent job change? That’s Klout. Your network commenting and discussing your latest blog post? That’s Klout. Whenever someone is influenced by you (and we can measure that), it helps your Klout Score.

“3. Yes, quality and breadth matter. All things being equal, having Barack Obama react to your content means more than if I do. All things being equal, having more people respond to your content raises your Score. The Klout Score is a combination of all of these factors: the number of people you influence, how much you influence them and how influential they are.”

Kristin the UnicornAs a communicator with a background in changing people’s ideas and behaviors, her explanation blew me away!

First of all, from a big picture perspective, I suspect Klout and its perk-pushing commercial customers envision social networks very differently from me. As I’ve written about many times, social networks are enabling swarms, self-organizing communities, to form around a common interest and fuel mass collaboration (a disruptive technology shift for the field of communications and just about every other business function). Klout and its commercial customers, however, seem to see social networks as just another communications channel for distributing messages.

More specifically, here’s the problem I have with Berry’s logic:

Klout measures influence by output, rather than outgrowths or outcomes. The examples Berry cite demonstrating your influence in the eyes of Klout—people “retweeting, commenting, liking, sharing, responding” to your content—are all outputs and have no relationship to whether your target audience received your message (outgrowth) and acted upon it in the way you wanted (outcome). To Berry’s credit, she does admit it’s hard to measure whether somebody does a handstand of joy after reading your content. But just because measuring outgrowths and outcomes is hard, doesn’t elevate the importance of outputs. After all, should people who tweet or post Facebook updates all day at work have high Klout? Or does that really diminish their reputation and influence?

Information alone does not change ideas or influence action. The examples Berry cite demonstrating your influence in the eyes of Klout—people “retweeting, commenting, liking, sharing, responding” to your content—also have little impact on changing ideas or influencing action, especially if your desired outcome costs a lot of money or is high risk. To effect meaningful change, your messages need to give people a sense of self efficacy or invoke social pressure/community norms among other things. In other words, you need a passionate swarm united around a common interest. The examples Berry sites—“your grandmother liking your Facebook status” or “your friend from high school congratulating you on your recent job change”—have nothing to do with this.

Klout doesn’t consider context and passion. Berry says President Obama reacting to your content means more than her reaction, implying interacting with people with high Klout raises your own. Klout, however, doesn’t seem to measure how relevant your message is to your audience. President Obama couldn’t influence me on hiring a chauffeur (like he would try) because I am not in the market for one. These days, context is king. For context to be meaningful from a business perspective, your messages need to have a business-relevant purpose that a swarm will rally around. In other words, no context + no passion = no influence.

Klout doesn’t consider the strong-tie phenomena. The New Yorker Staff Writer Malcolm Gladwell sparked a firestorm of criticism when he claimed—wrongly—revolutions won’t be tweeted because online communities have weak ties. While Gladwell underestimated the power of passion and common interest to bind strangers together online, his point about weak ties is still valid and applicable to Klout. Strong ties bind a college student sharing updates on Facebook with his small close-knit circle of friends.  Weak ties, however, bind his roommate who shares on Facebook (or Twitter) with 500+ people he wouldn’t recognize if he passed on the street. Klout seems to treat all network ties as equal, thereby creating dubious influence measures. Obviously, the teenager with strong ties would have better luck convincing his online friends to use a designated driver before a night on the town. In other words, low or no passion + potential resistance = strong ties as a must.

As far as I am concerned, businesses who rely on Klout to disseminate messages (or products as Klout perks) risk wasting time on “provide and pray,” what a recent Harvard Business Review called the worst social media practice:

“Leaders and managers provide access to a social technology, and then pray that a community forms and that community interactions somehow lead to business value. In most cases, adoption never really materializes; communities may form, but their activity is not considered valuable to the organization. “

Axe hair jell anyone (see video below)?

What do you think of Klout scores? Do you think outputs, strong ties, passion, or purpose matter?

 

Filed Under: Communications, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Video Clip of the Month: Branding Prof Eats Klout Crow

November 1, 2011 by

Eating CrowA thought-provoking exchange in the comments on Danny Brown’s marketing blog recently caught my eye, inspiring my pick for November 2011 video clip of the month. From Brown:

“@RichBecker Sweet Lord, seriously, mate? A professor grades based on Klout? How screwed up is that?

“You nailed it with the dehumanization of the online (and, to a degree, offline) populace, mate. By encouraging people to only connect with “influencers”, as decreed by Klout and their screwy algorithm, we’re essentially creating the equivalent of the Aryan nation dream from 60 years ago.

“Sad times indeed.”

His comment was in response to one from Rich Becker, author of the CopyWrite, Ink blog and writing, editing, and social media professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  A ton of negative blog posts have been written about Klout this week after the influence metrics service released a new algorithm, causing many users’ scores to drop 15 or more points (mine personally dropped 16) and some heavy Facebook users’ scores to rise. Many are complaining the new algorithm rewards people for posting mindless information on Facebook or ignoring everybody with low Klout scores on Twitter. From Becker:

“Danny,

“I find myself growing more concerned about Klout, especially in the way some people use it. The real advent of social media is that it allowed people to connect, especially those who would not otherwise connect.

“With scoring systems like Klout, which is taken more seriously than I ever imagined it would be, it disrupts those early benefits by reinforcing a new tier of elitism and disconnect. This is especially true with the new algorithm because engaging with people who have lower scores can lower a score. (Not that I care, but some people do).

“I know most people dismiss is outright, and I certainly wish I could. But the truth is that this service is being applied in the worst possible way by a growing number of people. I’ve read articles of otherwise respectable companies that do look at Klout scores for hiring purposes. I’ve seen people (people we know) alter their network accounts to earn better scores by ignoring people with lower scores or unfollowing them outright. And just yesterday, learned about a professor who bases a portion of his students’ grade on their Klout score. This wasn’t just a random professor or story. It was in the Wall Street Journal.

“I’ve never been a fan of Klout, but mostly because it overreaches in selling its own relevance. But lately, it has become much harder to not think of the system (not the people who work there) as truly evil in how it elevates vanity. This really presents a problem for me because, on one hand, I’m not really an anti-anything kind of person. But on the other, this does have some tangible and negative ramifications because it dehumanizes people. When I look at how Klout it used, I always get the feeling at this is a great wrongness that needs to be keep in check or could be adopting in any number of ways I’ve mentioned above.

“Thanks for continuing to cover it. I often have mixed feelings about whether or not I want to risk giving them more exposure.

“All my best, Rich”

I did a little Googling after reading the exchange and found more on the professor grading based on Klout. The marketing professor, Scott Galloway of New York University (NYU) Leonard N. Stern School of Business (@profgalloway) on Twitter, is shown in minute 3:18 of my video clip of the month threatening to publicly humiliate his students with the lowest Klout scores. A post on NYU Stern’s website elaborates, noting the top five students in his Brand Strategy class at mid-semester won an all expenses paid trip to Shanghai, China, to participate in a social media clinic.  The top students at mid-semester were Keren Mizrahi, on Twitter as @KerenRM; Johanna Pesso, on Twitter as @JohannaP83; Ari Wolfe, on Twitter as @Eflow03; Asha Shivaji, on Twitter as @AshaLS; and Dorottya Csegezi, on Twitter as @doroteee.

I checked today’s Klout scores (Nov. 1, 2011) for Professor Galloway and his trip winners. All of them except one has a higher Klout score than Professor Galloway. The Klout score of the one exception is just one point lower. Their Klout score rankings today are:

  • Asha Shivaji: 54
  • Ari Wolfe: 52
  • Keren Mizrahi: 51
  • Dorottya Csegezi: 50
  • Professor Scott Galloway: 48
  • Johanna Pesso: 47

I find it ironic that the star students of a professor who designed a course on the importance of showing “how important you are” (NYU post quotes) are likely to always outshine him under Klout’s new algorithm.  I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s crazy to believe graduate students have more influence than their marketing professor (especially one at a major university).

To rise above his star students under Klout’s new algorithm, however, Professor Galloway must choose to converse exclusively online with people with top Klout scores, ignoring many of his students and certainly most new ones. He also might consider talking about puppies and what he eats for lunch every day on Facebook. Neither option is very professorial, at least in my book.

What a funny (or sad) twist of fate.

Enjoy the video below (with the NYU class at minute 3:18).

What are your thoughts? Do you think professors should grade based on Klout? How much weight do you put into Klout and the other scoring systems?

Filed Under: Communications, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Q&As on Using Social Media to Get Rid of Narco Gangs

October 26, 2011 by

Juarez 21What do public officials and narco gangs have in common? Usually nothing. But in Mexico, both have rallied against citizens’ attempts to use social media to warn others about cartel checkpoints, shootouts, grenade attacks, and other public safety concerns.

Narco gangs see social media as a threat to their hold on power, while public officials complain the new technologies spread rumors. In fact, several Mexican states are considering laws criminalizing the sowing of “panic” on social networking sites.

This paradox endangers ordinary Mexicans who often cannot turn to the traditional media for information on which “no-go zones” to avoid to stay safe. In many parts of the country, especially in the north, media outlets have implemented a self-imposed blackout of coverage of drug violence.

With public safety information hard to come by, difficult to verify, and dangerous to pass along, what should ordinary Mexicans do? Can social media-empowered citizen journalists make a difference? Should they try? To explore this issue, I turned to Patrice Cloutier, a Canadian public servant specializing in emergency management and crisis communications and author of the Crisis Comms Command blog. His answers to my questions suggest the possibility of a Mexican revolution—where ordinary citizens band together to use social media (like the “Arab Spring”) to liberate themselves from tyranny (according to the BorderlandBeat blog, some Mexican villages have been successful at doing just that).

Q: How can Mexicans living in areas with narco gangs best use social media to keep themselves and their communities safe?

A: Social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and SMS text message, are invaluable tools for fostering community safety. As alerting tools, they can let residents know when cartel activity has been detected in a neighbourhood, village, or area. But they must be twinned with a kind of “neighbourhood watch” organization to get actual eyeballs watching the streets.

Social media also can serve as a support mechanism for communities impacted by cartel violence. It enables online communities to coalesce rapidly to speed recovery efforts (e.g., donations, volunteer coordination, support for victims’ families, etc.).

Q: How can the risks and dangers inherent in using social networks to crowdsource public safety be minimized?

A: It’s hard for us to imagine what life must be like in Mexican communities facing bloody drug cartel violence. We live in very safe communities. In Mexico, drug violence has killed some 40,000 people in the past five years, many of them innocent civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Communities live under fear, police corruption, and brutality, and the distinction between good and bad guys is not always clear. Yet a few brave souls who recognize the value of crowdsourcing crime information are risking their personal security to help communities combat the cartel scourge. Many Mexicans, however, are afraid to join them because they know anonymity is hard to preserve on social networking sites.

To protect themselves and their communities, Mexicans need to use intermediaries to sanitize the provenance of crime reports, working with reputable nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for support. Promoting the resulting crowdsourced maps and wikis would add extra protection by making the information as ubiquitous as possible, reducing the temptation of drug cartels to target civilians because the information would still be widely accessible despite retributions.

Q: What are the best ways public officials can prevent false rumors from creating chaos?

A: The only way public officials can prevent the spread of false information online is to be on the same social networking sites where rumours are spread. That means constantly monitoring social networking sites and having a strong online presence to correct online rumours. This might not be enough, however, when local or state officials themselves lack credibility because they are in the pay of cartels or are just inept. In such cases, whatever they say will likely be ignored.

At the same time, encouraging as many citizens as possible to crowdsource public safety information enables social media’s “self-correction” factor to take effect. People who spread false rumours and incorrect information on purpose will be quickly shunned and marginalized. Nobody will listen to them moving forward. But, as I mentioned before, before crowdsourcing can gain critical mass, Mexicans need access to intermediaries to sanitize the provenance of reports and reputable NGOs to help validate information.

Q: When does using social media to promote public safety become too dangerous?

A: It’s already dangerous for Mexican journalists and citizens to point fingers at the cartels, no matter what communications platform they use to do it. Just this week the United Nations named Mexico the fifth most dangerous place in the world for journalists.

I believe, however, social networks are the most powerful tool Mexicans have to fight drug cartels short of picking up guns and setting up village militias to confront them. The power is in the cloud and in the crowd. You can not shut up the whole population once, to paraphrase crowdsourcing guru Clay Shirkey, you reach the level of shared awareness where “everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows.”

Mexicans have shown themselves to be a very resilient people. I am confident they will survive the current crisis too. With the help of intermediaries and NGOs, they can harness the power of social networks to band together to rid their communities of drug cartels. A new horizon for Mexico is within their reach.

Personal note to Patrice:  Thank you for doing this! You’ve provided extremely invaluable information!

Disclosure: Some of my former employers and clients work in the anti-corruption arena.

Your turn? What do you think ordinary Mexicans should do to protect themselves and their loved ones from bloody narco gang violence?

Filed Under: Communications, Relief & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Wonderland of Unintended SEO Benefits

October 20, 2011 by

Every now and then one of my posts hits the search engine jackpot.

To my dismay, my first post to garner a large amount of search engine traffic was about Twitter and pornography. Because a lot of people typing the keywords “Twitter” and “pornography into search engines arrived at that post, it quickly became one of the top 10 most popular posts of all time on my website. It maintained this ranking for months despite getting minimal views and tweets from my regular readers when I first wrote  it.

In the last two months, two newer posts have hit the search engine jackpot:

Obviously, the people who land on the “context is king” post have an interest in social media and my blog, while those who arrive at the post on strategies because they’re interested in Alice in Wonderland may not.  The lesson here? Search engine optimization (SEO)—making your site the best it can be, so you can get traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines—is a powerful tool.

I’m a big fan of Search Engine Land, an amazing blog with the latest SEO news, research and analysis, commentary and expert advice. I also love the Hubspot blog for its research-based tips and useful information on SEO copywriting and other inbound marketing topics (both sites are all white hat by the way).

After all, it’s much better to win the SEO jackpot on purpose with posts searchers want to see, not by accident with posts they don’t.

Filed Under: Communications, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

Social Media-Fueled Swarms Don’t Need a Leader

October 9, 2011 by

Almost a year and a half ago I wrote that “we are on the verge of a massive shift in the way we communicate and inspire action.” Last February, as I watched jubilant Egyptians celebrate the resignation of their 82-year-old former president, I asserted that paradigm shift had arrived.

Today, as I read news articles mocking the Occupy Wall Street protests spreading from Lower Manhattan to hundreds of cities and towns, I realize how many still aren’t visualizing the new paradigm: a self-directed (i.e., leaderless) communications swarm flowing in infinite directions and loops—but in a synchronized way.

A “news” article in the Washington Post asks:

“Can a leaderless group that relies on consensus find a way for so many people to agree on what comes next? Can it offer not only objections but also solutions? Can a radical protest evolve into a mainstream movement for change?”

Leaderless group? Consensus? We’re talking swarms. What we’re witnessing is ideas buzzing in patterns similar to those of bees. Bees use their “humming” to instinctively move in synchronous swarms when they are building a new nest or hive. These self-organized swarms use a bottom-up approach where very simple interactions between individuals develop into complex group movements.

Mobile technology combined with real-time web applications, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, creates a buzz similar to the humming of these swarms. This buzz empowers people to align around a common interest, become inspired, and take action—nearly instantaneously and in unison without prior planning or forethought.

Swarms don’t need a leader. They don’t rely on consensus.

The New York Times Editorial Board gets at least the common interest inspiring the Occupy Wall Street protests:

“As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.

“At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.”

More journalists, politicians, and nonprofits need to take the Occupy Wall Street protests seriously, lack of common objectives and specific policy prescriptions or not. In the words of Geoff Livingston, whose blog posts are famous for applying timeless strategic principles to social media and Web 2.0 communications:

“Though dismissed, an opportunity is being missed with Occupy Wall Street. Nonprofits seeking to resolve issues of poverty and financial inequality should be leading the charge. Democrats who would naturally gravitate towards this series of issues — especially given tax debates of late — are avoiding Occupy Wall Street. Violence has tuned up the issue to new levels.

“The end result? More steam with bigger and more widespread protests.

“Conservative “anti-capitalism, socialist” spin isn’t going to make this one go away. Like the Arab Spring, like the Tea Party, like the angered Greeks, there is too much pain. No communications plan can fly in the face of a stakeholder groundswell centered on real problems. Occupy Wall Street is shaping the national debate.”

After all, would a swarm of bees need to be following a single leader, perhaps in a formation similar to geese, before you would take it seriously?

What do you think about Occupy Wall Street or social media-fueled swarms?

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , , , , , , ,