Klout Tells You If You’re Doing Social Media Wrong…or Right

Note/Disclaimer: Links in this blog entry WILL take you to the sites and information mentioned. As a general rule we do not link blind to off-blog sites within our text, but for the purpose of information sharing for this post we wanted to provide you easy access, in case you wanted to read some of the articles and information we mention.

Warning: If you are offended by occasional foul language, well, than the fuck are you reading our blog for away?

Klout. What is it? When spelled correctly, with a ‘c’ not a 'k', its fourth definition on Merriam Webster is “pull, or influence” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clout)…as in “She has enough clout in the music industry to get almost anyone a record deal”

Give us a K! *insert cheerleader move, and us holding orange pom-poms*

Give us a ‘K’ and you have Klout (not clout), an online company that measures the standard of social influence using a score of 1 to 100. The company has become a big deal over the last couple years, in certain circles, and in some circles a thorn in their side, and to others…what the hell is Klout, anyway?


That was just a little fun....

It’s been little over two years (it’s been “Measuring influence since 2008”) after its launch, you can read about Klout everywhere, from Time, to Forbes, to the New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, they’ve been written about all over the web by TechCrunch, and Wired.UK, to the everyday-Joe blogger (like us) and everyone in between.

Klout is not really intended for the average person, in our opinion, because the online influence SCORE of an average person, if you think about it, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans (unless they’re magic beans, of course). Klout is really beneficial to people like business owners/entrepreneurs, artists, writers, comedians, people working on some level for social change, politics and/or public relations, etc. Meaning it’s more for people who are aspiring something past a nine-to-five job, not those aspiring to do nothing at all, a.k.a. The Average Person, who shouldn’t care about their score; it has nothing to do with your actual worth as a human being.

Of course Klout tries to change the average persons level on caring by increasing the perceived level of importance by offering ‘Perks’ (started about 15 months ago) which means you get “exclusive access to products and experiences from top brands” based on what you are influential in. They even go so far as to say you can “put your Klout Score on your resume to land a sweet job or use it to get better customer service”; while a portion of that is true, “landing a sweet job” is pretty…vague.

So far most of the “Perks” Klout offers appear to be nothing more than advertising income for Klout. Past Perks include a free Box Set of Season 5 of 'The Office' Offer, exclusive access to test drive a Chevy Volt, access to charity event tickets, which is unclear if it means you get free tickets, or early access...plus so much more, IF you have the right amount of influence in the subject, of course.

Know what? Throw us a few free packages of bacon and a year supply of the kind of alcohol (yeah, apparently we're potentially influential in bacon and alcohol) we are really influential in (Michel Torino Estates Cuma Torrontés from Argentina) and maybe we’ll take Klout Perks as more than an advertising ploy to get the average citizen to provide free advertising to the people who are paying for the spots on Klout.

But What Does Klout Do?

Klout analyses your influence level based on, so far, some pieces of data all cozied up under the headings like True Reach (the number of people you actually influence); Amplification (how much you influence those people you influence); Network Impact (how much you influence the network of people you influence with your…influence).

The data Klout uses to measure influence are things such as following count, follower count, retweets, list memberships, number of spam/dead accounts following you, how influential the people that retweet you are, and unique mentions. Klout uses Facebook information such as your comments, likes, and friends count to assess your "Klout Score" which is the number that signifies your level of online influence. Klout is unable to explain, so far, past Twitter and Facebook, how exactly it measures your score using other networks it suggests you link to your account, which currently are also Google +, LinkdIn, FourSquare, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress, Last.fm, Flickr.

The one item of Twitter influence data that really interested us was the part where it talks about how influential the influence of the people you RT are to your Klout score. We read somewhere (forgot to write down the source, of course) that it’s in your best interest not to interact with those who have a lower Klout score than you.

Wait. WHAT?! <-that’s what echoed through our head*; based on that statement they want you to be social online with people who are closer to your score, or higher, not with people who are not as influential as you. Sounds like a fucking "cool kids" clique to us.

We’ve been playing around with Klout for months, testing theories on activity levels, debating its importance, seeing its clear potential, trying to understand it’s sensitivity (it’s hard to get Klout scores up, but they fall like a whore on a dick made of money).

We’ve read in books (yeah, we read those things made out of paper that have words in them too) about social influence being important in things like getting book deals and/or agents. We realize it’s important in assessing the value of a platform created by, say, us, required before we even approach agents and publishers (if we were to do so). Looking at it that way it’s not hard to understand how it can be used in evaluating influence for people who need to be in the public eye to be successful, such as models, musicians, actor, actresses, comedians, people who work in social media, public relations, business owners trying to boost their *clears throat*...clout...with perspective lenders, agents & representatives and employers.

Yesterday (October 26^th) Klout announced their new model of measurement. They revamped the algorithms, or some shit, and decided to say that it was going to provide "more transparency” and accuracy in measuring influence. We’ve spent the morning reading comments from all corners of the internet to find out about this “transparency” and what people were saying about it, including spending some time on Klout's Facebook page where we raised some questions regarding some of our own missing data and dramatic score change on our Klout profile thanks to the new "model". Our Klout score dropped by 13 points (from 71 to 58) in less than a week but said the overall 30-day change was only a decrease of 0.43. So we made sure to let them know "someone [there] doesn't fucking know how to use math".

So far it’s no more transparent than the previous “model”.

Standing on the edge of Klout you/we are faced with a quandary. Is it important? Who is it important to? What does it all mean anyway? OR How exactly is "so-and-so" influential in homelessness (we're talking to you @ConfusedLush *wink*), he's not homeless, he doesn't work with the homeless...so how did Klout decide he may be influential in the topic? Klout (& others who have given us K+'s, which are a whole subject we don't feel like getting into) says we’re influential in Writing, Blogging, Alcohol, Community, Comedy, Knives, Bacon, Music…the list goes on, we are potentially influencial in 14 topics. How are we influential in knives ? Okay, we know that one…but what exactly did they monitor to figure that out? Where does all the influential topics come from? Our favorite comment today was this one:

With their recent fail (you may not know it, but lots of people are upset) and completion on the horizon like Peerindex, Proskore and Kred, Klout is soon to be the new MySpace of social networking. (You remember the social networking wasteland that is MySpace, right?)

Just as Alexia Tsotsis states, “I’m willing to be Steve Jobs didn’t check his Klout score”; we’re willing to guess that if Apple was just getting on its feet, and was new to the world, Steve Jobs would have been (R.I.P.) monitoring his Klout score, as well as Apples company score, until he could pay someone to monitor it for him and care about the score, like Britney Spears (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704637704576082383466417382.html), and so many more.

At the end of the day most people shouldn’t care about their score, some should. If you know why you should, if you know why it’s important, if you know what it can do for you then you should care. We actually have some reasons to care about it, but that’s not going to make us stop talking to the people who matter to us on Twitter, just because their Klout score may be lower than ours*.

If you care because you think it’s some sort of populatirity contest, like so many people think Twitter is…then you might want to sit back and relax, because most people won't be looking for yours anyway.

Source: http://www.theanimatedwoman.com/2011/10/my-kloutoris.html

Oh, yeah, by the way, no matter what Klout, or anyone else, tells you, there's no real way to do Twitter or any other social networking site "right:...

http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/08/youre-doing-twitter-wrong.html

More Social Media Stuff We've Written:

• Birds of A Feather, on Twitter, CAN Flock Together
• For Us, It's All About Team Awesome...and Twitter
• We Talk About Listing People On Twitter
• Who Are The Twitter Elite...And Of Course We Ramble
• You're Doing Twitter Wrong
• So, You've Been Unfollowed and/or Blocked
• There's More Than One Way To Skin A Troll
• We’re Not Breaking Up With You, Twitter, But…

• Our One Year Twitter Anniversary

Our Guest Blogger Writes About Fear (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month)

We don't have a lot to say about fear, other than we feel it a lot, we've written about it in our blog many times over the last 10 months; but we are sure there is nothing like the fear of breast cancer, waiting for results in the event of abnormal tests, and the fear after, that it may come back. We hope that is one fear we never have to know.

We have a message for our friend, guest blogger, Twitter-pal...cancer survivor, Kerry, you are a successful nurse, writer, and human being, and to fear, as you know, darling, is normal. 

We love you, Kerry. You are an amazing friend, and as we have told you (and as James has also told you) we are here for you, to help however, to be supportive however, even if it's just to make you laugh about kicking puppies.

Thank you so much for sharing, with us, and with our readers, with the world. You are a strong and amazing woman.

Fear!

National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month Website:
http://www.nbcam.org/

Sometime it’s appropriate to share.  Sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes it’s a way to let others know and understand that I am human and not just a professional or a writer.  Sometimes it’s a way for me to sort stuff out in my head and I can bring you guys along for the ride.  This blog is about me and not like my other pieces.  It also comes with an emotional health warning, what I say may upset you.

I am afraid. I am sooo scared. My fear permeates everything I do.  It wraps itself around my heart and makes it difficult for it to beat to any rhythm.  My heart stutters and stops and flutters; unable to cope with the menacing presence of fear.  My fear works its’ way up my nostrils and into my brain.  It is there every second that I am awake and plagues my dreams.  It makes me not sleep so that I am so sleep deprived that I see people and things that aren’t there.  I love food and often over eat when stressed, but my fear turns food to sawdust in my mouth.  My fear is a snake in my stomach, writhing, wriggling, unable to let me put anything in it; making me feel sick; physically forcing food out of me.  It dried up my mouth so I can’t speak, and throttles me gently to stop words asking for help seep out of my mouth.  My fear dries my eyes and stops me crying, makes it impossible for my emotions that are welling up inside me to get out.  I am going to rip apart, my emotions are pushing and shoving to find some room, a space any space but there is none.  Some thing is going to have to give.

I look at myself in the mirror.  I’ve lost weight, I have always been a little bit plump so I look lean and toned.  I smile and interact and behave the same way and I know I look normal from the outside.  No one has guessed.  A few people know safe people who are kind to me; my boss at work in case I do not perform as well as I normally do.  I can’t sleep.  I am awake 20 hours a day, eyes open wide awake, tension in my jaw.  I have at least another 5 weeks of this to endure and I feel like I am going mad.

This is what has been happening in my head for the last 2 months, maybe more.  Earlier on this year I was contacted by some relatives and cutting a REALLY long story short, they had had breast cancer too.  Suddenly I went from being a ‘just one of those awful things’ type of cancer to having a family history.

I was sick, really sick when I was having treatment.  People thought I would die.  I thought I would die, and in dark moments I wished for it.  In my mind if I get cancer again I will go straight back to being that sick.  Of course this will not be the case; I will get there in stages as I did last time and this time treatment might be different….if I get it again.

A couple of months ago I went for gene testing to see if I have the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes which are linked with an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Causesriskfactors/Genetics/Cancergenetics/BRCA1BRCA2genes.aspx feel free to read if you want to know more.  What this means is that if you have these genes, your body does not take 60 years of environmental damage building up in it to develop cancer.  It happens much sooner.  It could be the reason why I had breast cancer at 32.

There is a plethora of treatment options, ranging from screening to surgery.  It may mean that everything I have that differentiates me as being a woman may be gone, cut out, removed.  I am only 36.

I have come to terms that I only have one child and I am immensely grateful for that.  I could not cope with the fatigue of having another baby, physically or psychologically.  Now the choice may have been taken away.  My son is unaware that I have had this test and I will not tell him until I know what the result is.  All he knows is that Mummy is not sleeping very well at the moment.  It is up to me to keep him as safe as I can.  I will only tell him when I have facts to show him; not worries in my head.

There are implications for him.  If I test positive it will affect his ability to get life insurance, mortgages and other loans in the future.  If I have the genes I may have passed them onto him but I am not feeling this guilt yet, the fear is all encompassing.  It has implications for other family members too.  If I have the genes then they will be able to gene test them and find the results much faster as they will know where to look.  My geneticist said that it was like looking for a spelling mistake in the bible.  There is also a chance that they might miss it and I still have the gene although I will be told that I do not have it.

I think that’s the reason I can’t tell people, because it may or may not be the case.  I may or may not have the gene.  I may or may not develop cancer again.  On the positive side, if I do not have the gene I remain high risk of the cancer returning, so nothing will have changed.  Life, it would seem, is forcing me to look at my own mortality again.

People want to ‘rescue’ other’s in distress (see my blog entry on suicide for furtherdetails). I know that if words slip past my lips people will tell me that there is no use in fretting, that I don’t know if it will happen yet, no news is good news, stop looking on the gloomy side.  The consent form for the testing stated that this test may cause anxiety; I am not anxious per se just afraid.  I do not want people to dismiss my fear because they find it difficult to cope with.  I can’t handle their emotions as well.

I have a wry smile to myself when people perceive me as a successful nurse, writer, and human being.  I do not show them this fearful wreck shivering in the corner.

I follow #FeelEmFriday on twitter. Where a group of us, men as well, have avi’s (profile pictures) of our breasts (in bras) or the men’s chests to promote self examination to prevent this disease.  Some people on twitter do not like this and say horrible things.  My avi is a black bra with pink trim and spots on it.  Promotion and prevention is the key and I will always support people who do things to help others.  It is fun and silly and makes me, and others, giggle.  A bit of light relief in the dark.

I will cope and I will get through this.  I do not know many more people tougher than me.   When I know what the results are I will be able to fight or be relieved; but at least I will know and I will deal with the results head on.  But just for now, just for you, just here I thought I would take my mask off and show you what’s underneath. Thank your for reading.

Kerry xxx

Read other entries on our blog by our guest blogger Kerry:

• Our New Guest Blogger (Kerry Stott @kerrystott) 
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About Depression (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About Suicide (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About Endopsychic Energy (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About S.A.D. (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About Anxiety (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)

The Enlightenment Of A Englishman In America: Part 1

The Boyfriend is slowly learning about all things United States/American, including learning about the FDA – the Food & Drug Administration of the United States of America (sorry, not all our readers are American). We had conversations with him all day about it. He sat dumbfounded while he read aloud passages from the likes of the Dairy Council of California, Prevent Cancer and Cancer.org websites. He was reading these websites because he wanted to learn more about a bovine hormone that encourages lactation (rBGH/BST) that they inject in some of the cows (1 in 5) in the USA, and therefore is in some of milk in the United States. He was surprised that at least one of these websites provided mostly vague answers to questions that deserved more clarity and others over clarified information that was fairly obvious and easy to understand. Misinformation was the term he used more than once.

*We feigned shock*. What? Misinformation in the United States of America?! Neevvvvvver. *blank stare*

Being we’ve always been of the curious nature, even in childhood, we already knew so much about food in American, so we were not surprised. He read a passage mentioning Monsanto - they are evil and we will stand by that opinion to the day we die…of cancer from eating food genetically modified with things they shouldn’t be (they own almost all the genetic rights to grain seeds in North America and beyond) - how Monsanto has supporters working in the FDA and so things that the rest of the world will not import from the USA because their health organizations deem them unsafe, are readily available to citizens and residents of the United States.

We digress; we’re getting all hot under the collar over here by the subject of milk, grain and food....

Clearly food security and safety, nutrition, government regulation etc. is a subject I desire to cover with much more depth than we can tonight (for something I wrote about a year and a half ago read: ‘Fundamentally Unsafe: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)’ http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2010/05/fundamentally-unsafe-high-fructose-corn.html)

Long story short is that our day was fairly interesting with unpacking and conversations with The Boyfriend (who is British, or rather an Englishman, for those who have not read more about him here in the blog) about the FDA, and food in general in the United States…he was appalled to learn about how we, the USA, raise our beef and other animals for human consumption. Don’t know what we are talking about? Read ‘Fast Food Nation’…but don’t watch the movie, it is rubbish in comparison to the book. Watch ‘Food, Inc’…and several other documentaries that take you inside the more recent industrial revolution of food production in America…it’s no wonder we’re a nation of physically ill people.

Judging from his first few days here (ever), and his general observations of society, he is seeing the United States with open eyes, wide.open.eyes (we hear a lot of "Wow"'s...).

It’s interesting to be part of someone else’s enlightenment…not that he, like so many, had far to go; and as far as I am concerned enlightenment is ever-evolving and is not a stagnant state.

~Frank

----- Links to offsite locations to things we mentioned, and points of interest ----

"If you eat a typical amount of beef per year, […] which in the United States is about 67 pounds, switching to grass-fed beef will save you 16,642 calories a year."
Source: CNN Health ‘The grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef debate’ March 29, 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/29/grass.grain.beef.cookinglight/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/ (Trailer and synopsis for ‘Food, Inc’)

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Fast-Food-Nation-Eric-Schlosser/?isbn=9780060838584 (description of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser from Harper Collins)

Generally related link of interest, an article by American Free Press Kerry Sheridan, regarding the recent deadly cantaloupes and the many potential reasons they became contaminated with listeria, all things that could have been prevented had there been more regulation in place, more monitoring, more people who cared about product over profit, likely… http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joe6nr9CMM1XtBMIt3a27V3dfJLg?docId=CNG.339e36e1d75721f93c1ca8cb6b037173.1b1“

Nothing Much III

No.

Just No.

No writing tonight.

We walked an hour to get our drivers licence and to go order wine, the guy wasn't in like we were told by the employee on Saturday, and won't be until Thursday...so we wait.

Looked into cell phone/data options and got thoroughly pissed off about how complicated and expensive it has gotten since the last time we lived in the states seven years ago.

We're excessively frustrated, partly because we were out in public for over six hours today, and that exceeds our maximum comfort level by hours...and it's because we are still a slave to going everywhere with The Mother (unless we can walk there) until we can figure out wheels of our own...stress.stress.stress. *whimper*

Read the last four or five entries if you are interested in having something to read...or learning more about multiple personality disorder, or well...all the other shit we write about...whatever.

Hated.This.Day...

~ Catherine

'A Day With Melody' - James' Blog Post

The Boyfriend writes about spending a day with one of us...that's it...we don't currently have a response rf opinion. He's got a couple more blog posts we will be importing now that we've completed THE BIG MOVE...If you want to read them go check it his blog: http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/ ) in the menatime...here is the boyfriends blog post about Melody.

We wrote today, it's about two Previous Posts back...and you know we'll be writing about something tomorrow...we got nuthin' but time.
--------------------------

I got to spend an entire day with Melody today (13th October), it was a wonderful day and I wanted to share it.

About Melody: The first place to see a short introduction to Melody is on their mapping site http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/. In short Melody is a 12 year old alter, her age chosen by herself because she didn't want the grief of being an adult and all the emotions / hurt that goes along with that. A part of this is also to do with her role with in the "et al" - Melody is the one that helps them get over bad experiences and she acts as a mediator, something she can only do well if she is free from emotions and can therefore remain impartial. She doesn't take sides, she doesn't have favourites and she doesn't (tries not to) have feelings. As well as being able to shut these out for herself she can also help take emotions and feelings from the group which helps them recover from upsets.
I have started to keep track of the switching, noting as best as I can who is around, what the day has been like and any possible triggers. Here's part of my notes for this day:

Melody is not supposed to let feelings and emotions effect her (this is my take on it, the alternative being that she is just not capable but I know that’s not true) yet she has been down, sad and a little moody; She seems to suffer with the negative emotions. I wonder if the others push their negative emotions onto her just as they might push feelings of paranoia onto Catherine.

What this means for me is that Melody can sometimes appear emotionally cold though that's not always true. The lack of emotions and feelings is something Melody chose, in that she tries not to have them though there are occasional slips. The important thing though is that when it matters, she is able to push them all away.
I've written before how Melody once said that she "will try not to be around too long" because she thinks I'd rather be with someone that can show affection towards me. Cassandra once said it too and to both of them I responded by saying they should never think that, that I always love being with them, with any of them. And today I got to spend an entire day with Melody and it was a really good day.

Something I'll add here as it's a thought that I want to keep: There have been times recently when I would have liked to be with Melody and talk to her about things (mainly about me, partly about "us") and it would have been good to speak with someone that can remain impartial and someone I can talk to about my idiocies knowing any answers I'd get were just as impartial read: "100% honest" (not implying any of the others are dishonest).

I was feeling quite ill today and Melody did everything she could to help me and look after me, including offering to make lunch for us. We played video games and watched a movie and we got a real chance to talk. Several times Melody even allowed herself to laugh at a few things.

Unlike the others, Melody (along with Sam) doesn't particularly enjoy being on twitter but does so because "it's the rules". Melody has her own things that she likes doing but is seldom given the chance to do them and this can upset her (as much as she does get upset) and given the chance (I told her she should do the things she likes doing and if necessary I will speak to the others about it) she would do research and look at news.
Frank et al: Melody isn't around much and I know there are "rules" about what needs to be done during the day but please, I'm asking you, give her some slack.

Towards the end of the day, when we were sitting on the sofa talking I used her name a lot but the next day I was told that she requested I didn't as it makes her uncomfortable, in what way I didn't ask.

In short today was a great day and I enjoyed being with Melody. She got a little down (yes, more "emotions") because she felt she hadn't been very productive but over all it was a fun day. Melody did say though that she doesn't like being "out" so long and would rather someone else was executive but as with any of them, I'd love to spend more time with her.

Melody: (sorry, can't think how to address this to you without using your name) Thank you for this day, I hope we get to spend more time together if you can stand it. Please don't ever think that I wouldn't want to spend time with you.
I love you Mel... Sorry, I love you. Thank you.
[copied from the original location http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/]

Some of the other stuff he's written about us

• 'I Meet Cassandra And It Doesn't Go Well'
• 'A Rough Night, Not The Good Kind'
• 'Who's Here Today'
• 'I Talk to Cassandra'
• 'Nine of Nine'
• 'Meet Catherine, Not Bethany'
• 'Today Was A Good Day'
• 'They Are One'
• 'They Are Nine'
• 'An Emotional Night For Us All'
• 'Brooke Gets The Better Of Me'
• 'One or Nine? I Say Nine'
• 'Perfect Ten'