How I Increased my Klout

Like many of the early adopters I follow on twitter I have had my Klout profile setup for quite a while but with so many new services popping up it’s very tricky to know which ones deserve time and which ones have the commitment to development to stick in the online social World.

YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all have made the grade and stuck. Each have their own area of speciality, Video, Photography, Business, Social Sharing and Micro-Blogging but nothing has really stuck for measuring your network influence and reach using these services. I now think Klout is set to become THE standard measurement tool for your online influence and network reach (your clout).

Last month I read a few articles stating that some companies are hiring (or conducting interviews) based on a persons Klout score. This makes sense to me as an employer, if the role demands a skillset that requires online interaction and the ability to amplify then a centrally adopted score system would be the perfect place to start the interview selection process.

With these things in mind, I decided to see what I needed to do to increase my Klout without increasing my followers. Over the years I have concentrated on quality online interactions with people that have skills in subjects that interest me. Building a quality network, following a manageable amount and partaking in quality discussions has been key to how I use twitter. Once you have built trust, followers will safely re-tweet your links and content as you have a proven track record in quality output. If you are re-tweeted then your content is (usually) regarded as quality and this is one of the main areas that Klout examines.

I concentrated on putting out content that may get re-tweeted and liked on Facebook and in a period of 15 days my Klout went from 56 to 62 (see chart above). With my follower stats of only just over 1k I know that this rise relied on a select group of really splendid twitter users and a network of which I’m proud to be a part of.

The more influence a twitter user has over their own network increases the amplification of your tweet once they re-tweet it. So if you get a re-tweet from a user with a Klout of 75 your reach with that tweet is far greater and therefore your Klout score should rise. So by building solid relationships with quality influencers you are laying the foundations for expanding your network reach. With all of this in mind, it’s not about numbers – having 10k followers does not increase your network reach unless all of those 10k are influencers themselves.

Think quality, put out quality and build relationships with other people outputting quality. Your Klout score is never going to be an indication of how good you are in your social networks but It can help to be an indicator to others as to why they should follow you – or – give you a job.

The re-tweet and interaction is only one way of increasing your Klout and you should read all of the 25+ factors that goes into your score here.

P.S. by attempting to increase your Klout score you are also quality controlling your own content, making you think before you tweet – this can only be a good thing?