Influence: What Are Tools Like Klout Really Measuring?

Influence: What Are Tools Like Klout Really Measuring?

See on Scoop.itThe Social Web

A very interesting comparison of several measurement tools and what they really measure. [note mg]

For marketers, PR professionals and customer service teams, personal influence measurement tools can save time and help facilitate business decisions. Tools such as Klout, PeerIndex, Kred and TweetLevel are being used by brands to rank the relative importance of customers and prospects, prioritize customer service responses, and identify groups of influencers to target with perks and product sampling promotions.

But what are these personal influence measurement tools really measuring? Are they really an effective way to understand which of your customers are more influential

It is easy to understand influence as a concept; if you can get other people to do something, you have influence. But it’s not at all easy to define how you would measure influence. As Nathan Gilliatt has pointed out, there is no such thing as a “unit of influence” – an observable, measurable event that reflects influence.

Read more: http://therealtimereport.com/2012/04/03/influence-what-are-tools-like-klout-really-measuring/

Stephen Dale‘s insight:

Social reputation and social influence are becoming as important (if not more important) than your paper-based CV and your real-world network. But can they be empirically measured, and if so, what does your score actually mean? This article gives an overview of some of the products/services that purport to give you an influence score. Whether you take it seriously is entirely up to you!

See on therealtimereport.com

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