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Brands have been focused on “E” for some time now – “E” as in engagement. The ongoing belief has been that if you gain the most fans, likes or followers you have largely succeeded. But what if a new player were to come along that measured how many people were actually engaging with your content and found a way to standardize this across a variety of platforms?

Enter Klout, the standard measurement of social influence. Klout is a tool that quantifies influence not simply based on friend count or number of followers, but based on the ability to drive action with the content that is produced. In order for Klout to be effective it must continue to evolve and adjust its measurement system as the web continues to expand as more and more networks enter the online space.

That being said, there is definitely something to this different way of measuring online impact. Currently there are over 100 million calculated Klout Scores and some are even referring to the service as “a social credit score.”

If Klout can keep up with its challenges will it change the way brands think about and measure online engagement?

How it Works

Klout uses various algorithms to measure how often actual engagements are taking place by using indicators such as @mentions, re-tweets, likes, and comments. According to Klout, influence is the measure of how much impact a user’s online content has on other users. The more someone is mentioned, re-tweeted, or commented on, the greater their influence, and hence “Klout Score.” This is scaled from 1 to 100, with 100 being the most influential. Users can find out their score by going to Klout.com and syncing their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, G+ etc.)

The data pulled from these social media websites are separated into three categories: True Reach, Amplification, and Your Network. Each of these are weighted and combined to make up your Klout Score.

Klout Score Uses

Influencers

Influencers are people who have a large impact within the social space. They are people whose tweets and comments are largely followed, and when they produce content it acts as a ripple effect that extends far beyond their immediate social graph.

Topics

Topics offers the ability to discover who is influential about a particular subject, such as technology, fashion or politics.

Perks

One of the most intriguing parts of Klout are the Perks. Influencers can be offered access to exclusive products, events or experiences based on their Klout Score, topical influence, location, or other factors specific to each campaign.

Social Currency

As Klout becomes more popular, it has actually become a form of social currency. Consumers are even placing their Klout Score on their resumes to gain leverage when applying for a job, or posting it on Twitter or Facebook as a form of bragging rights.

Main Takeaways

In the past, we measured web success by the number of “hits” a website received, that number then turned into unique visits, and with the emergence of a social web that is constantly changing, brands are struggling to quantify their online impact. Is it views? Posts? Comments? Likes? Followers? Klout, however, provides a way to take all these factors into consideration and more. By assigning a value to social media engagements in a quantifiable way.

The power of Klout will largely depend on how much popularity it gains and on the algorithms’ ability to morph and develop as the social media space changes. But it’s quite likely that brands will have to move toward measuring quality rather than just quantity.

In the new web environment, brands will need to establish more real relationships with consumers by creating content and experiences people actually care about. This will be a shift toward action and engagement and away from just reach and impressions.

Klout forces us to at least re-evaluate how we measure engagement in the social media space by reminding us what social media is all about: conversations, sharing, relationships.

For more information check out “The Future of Online Influence.”