Mum! I’m influential on twitter…. well… according to klout influence score I am. First of all I don’t really know how true the klout level is but I think it should give a rough idea on influence on twitter.
A month ago my klout level fell from 79 to 68. after an update. I expected that because I wasn’t very active on twitter as I was away for a holiday. So I didn’t spend a lot of time on twitter as I used to and as I wanted to. So I was thinking. How does klout look at influence?
According to klout, influence in determined by a variety of factors which are
- Retweets
- @messages
- Follows
- List
After reading that I thought to myself, I noticed that three of the four factors that are counted into the influence should be easy to test. Since I thought it will be fun to test the amount of tweets sent, @mentions and follows. The listings are a little harder as not many people will list you at first but there is a way around it.
So I thought it would be fun to test put the @klout level to the little @askaaronlee what influence test. (Yeah it sounds cool to name it that)
So according to klout this is my influence level
As you can see on the top, my influence level fell from 79 to 68. Then slowly increased to 73 and recently 77. What happened or what did I do?
From 79 to 68
What happened: I went for a holiday so I didn’t post much tweets (I scheduled them in advance to post 1 tweet every 2 hours). Which means less retweets and less @mentions because I didn’t engage at all. That means 4 days without any engagement with anyone on twitter because I don’t have twitter on my mobile. Maybe in the future when I get an iphone or a blackberry.
What I did: Nothing
From 68 to 73
What happened: I knew I didn’t tweet much and engage much. So I thought to myself that I should just tweet more and engage less and only include one out of the four factors which said to influence. So I continue to tweet without much engagement at all. I still talk to people but not as much as I should. (Sorry for not replying guys)
What I did: Send out 3 tweets per hour 24 hours a day. Less engagement
From 73 to 77
What happened: Okay! game on!! I maintained the same level of tweets like what I did from 68 to 73 which is 3 retweets per hour. This means that I will continue to have the same amount of retweets but having more @mentions by engaging with my followers.
What I did: 3 tweets per hour + engagement with my followers.
I engage with my followers by sending out funny tweets and more personal tweets which I didn’t do before this. I included some personal thoughts and some funny tweets which I hope didn’t annoy anyone much people.
I got a great amount of @mentions from my personal tweets including people tweeting me saying I was funny and I made their day (thank you for those sweet tweets)
How much @mentions? I took a recent screen shot of a conversation + retweets from @cotweet
That that is basically a @mention every minute from my engagement with the people on twitter. Thank you to everyone who talked to me and retweet me.
Summary
Today my klout influence is backed up to 77 which I think is pretty cool after some test. I will continue to do some test. If you’re interested to join me. Feel free to send me an email or Dm me if I am following you on twitter.
If I am not following you on twitter, then send me a tweet saying “aaron you promise to follow me” LoL! that will catch my attention from the Justin bieber fans asking me to follow them and him.
So this is what I did that worked for me and a client of mine who had a new twitter account an a influence of 8. Today their influence level increased to 19 in a month.
My Opinion on klout influence:
Okay, I do agree with the four factors that is included in the influence level, but what about including clicks from a tweets? I think clicks should be one of the factors taken into consideration on influence level.
What do you think? and what else should we take into consideration on influence? Feel free to comment below and I’ll get back to you.
photo credit: by marcn
Charliesaidthat says
Interestingly, I find Klout hasn't updated my content since the first time it took a capture of my tweets. I would be interested to see more of their methodology – might be worth a more thorough test with new accounts.
Nice article though – and HURRAH!!! for finding another cotweet user. π
Pat Heffernan says
Aaron, I agree clicks from tweets are definitely a missing influence factor in Klout. They also seem to track only bit.ly as a url shortener. I'm wondering if that will change when Twitter's new shortener becomes more widespread.
Aaron Lee says
Thanks, yeah I think so too, but with so many url shortener I am not sure if klout is able to track all of them unless they have some cool team who is able to do that.
Aaron Lee says
Content as in your klout level? What you can do is go to the klout dashboard and update it. You can update it ever 5-6 days.
Thanks! great to find another cotweet lover! woot!
Charliesaidthat says
Actually I do tend to keep it updated every week or so. Rather than the influence level I find that the Content Analysis – is very very old and hasn't updated.
Aaron Lee says
Oh! I get what you mean Charlie, I agree with you too. the content analysis is a little old. They showed people who I have not talked to like a million years.
Dorlee M says
Hi Aaron,
Thanks so much for walking us through your analysis and mini-test of Klout. It was fun being taken along on your journey π I agree with you that number of clicks would add an additional valuable factor.
Take care,
Dorlee
P.S. I hope you know that there was no need for you of all people to take this test… you are by definition probably one of the most influential people on twitter. My assumption is that there are very few people with the large number of followers that you have…plus you really actively tweet and engage as opposed to some infamous movie stars who may have huge numbers of followers but tweet once in a blue moon. In fact, I would have just given you a score of 100 π That said, your modesty is part of what makes you so likeable and endearing so please don't change !
Jeffrey Ryan says
Loved it. I have been trying to figure out how to increase my klout and thanks to you now I know!
Anita Nelson says
My klout plummeted after their update to 41~!! It had been 68~! I used to rank as a persona and now as a networker. I greatly appreciate all of the research you put into this article and for the information so I can bring my klout score back up =)
I hope they consider some of the points you made and revamp klout again. I lost my zest for the site after the update and stopped going there…which means I no longer tweet the site as I used to do.
x0x
Anita @ModelSupplies
Dino Dogan says
Who gives a klout? lol just kidding…great summary. I think the most important “klout” factors cant be measured by any technology. Im talking about the way people feel about you. And as far as Im concerned, you got all the klout you want in my book.
Dino Dogan says
Who gives a klout? lol just kidding…great summary. I think the most important “klout” factors cant be measured by any technology. Im talking about the way people feel about you. And as far as Im concerned, you got all the klout you want in my book.
Words Done Write says
Anita: It just goes to show that the ranking is far from perfect. Given your level of interaction and the retweets you get, there's no reason your score should be that low.
Words Done Write says
Anita: It just goes to show that the ranking is far from perfect. Given your level of interaction and the retweets you get, there's no reason your score should be that low.
Words Done Write says
Aaron: That's an interesting test. My score took a nosedive during the summer when I was tweeting less in an effort to find balance in my life. Balance = low Klout score. Now, as I've given up on balance, my score has gone back up and I think it's respectable for someone with my follower count.
All these ways for us to be measured and validated. Sometimes it's exhausting. I wish some days we could just go back to the old-fashioned “Atta Boy!” with a slap on the back. Just as good and less pressure to drive numbers ;->
Amber Avines
@wordsdonewrite
Klout Score: 43 and holding
Words Done Write says
Aaron: That's an interesting test. My score took a nosedive during the summer when I was tweeting less in an effort to find balance in my life. Balance = low Klout score. Now, as I've given up on balance, my score has gone back up and I think it's respectable for someone with my follower count.
All these ways for us to be measured and validated. Sometimes it's exhausting. I wish some days we could just go back to the old-fashioned “Atta Boy!” with a slap on the back. Just as good and less pressure to drive numbers ;->
Amber Avines
@wordsdonewrite
Klout Score: 43 and holding
Reg Saddler says
I dropped from 84 to 56 with a 2 month break from twitter. I'm back up to 68 and hopefully I can claw my way back to a 84
Aaron Lee says
Come back stronger Reg! π You always do.
Aaron Lee says
Amber,
Congrats on your influence at 43. That it pretty good. It shows that you have a good following of people as you keep a ratio of contents and engagement.
The problem I think with klout is they look at the account itself and not person. I think we have more influential people who's klout are really low as they don't tweet much, but when they do they go quite viral.
Don't forget some balance. You don't wanna be over doing it.
Aaron
Aaron Lee says
Hey D,
Nice seeing you on my blog. I agree with your comment. They can't measure how people feel about us which I think is a downfall. Thanks man! you got all the klout in my thin little book here
Aaron
Aaron Lee says
A agree with Amber too.
Try adding more personal tweets to check if it goes as I realized personal tweets do help to bring up that excitement in the tweet which I think can help bring you up again.
Thanks for the comment.
Aaron
Aaron Lee says
Good luck Jeffrey, tell me how it goes.
Aaron Lee says
Hello Dorlee,
Its good to see you on my blog. Glad you found my journey fun. I was figuring how I should write this post.
Thank you so much for the kind comment. I don't really see myself as a influential guy on twitter though. Numbers are one thing but I think taking the time to engage with great people like you matters more.
Thank you so much for giving me a 100. I'll TRY not to change LoL! ohh I feel the pressure now.
Aaron
Rahul Banker says
I am only on 48 π Need to work on this now!! π Hopefully I will get at least 55-58 in a month or so
Aaron Lee says
Sure, put out more engagement or retweets. It worked for me π
Good luck with it and tell me how it goes.
Steve Willhite says
I really liked this Aaron. It surprises me that scores drop just from a week or two with less activity. I think Klout should give people at least 2 weeks without it affecting their score if they are still tweeting at least a little during that time period. I don't really know why Klout doesn't keep up with my account information such as number of lists. They do great as to the number of followers and RT's, mentions, etc. I really enjoy Klout and with it's problems, I am still great-full to them for their service. Thanks again,@ Stevewillhite
Person Fucking says
Hey I also wanna be a famous Twitter!
zulseffort says
Love this! Haha my klout score is usually around 40-45 , i dont know the new one since I am not updating the scores and lately I am not active and too lazy to schedule tweets and updating the score.
After this busy month, maybe I'll be a little bit hardworking π
BTW, Klout is my favourite .. I love the way they do the classification.
glitterglitzer says
Klout… What is that? Sounds Swedish. These were my exact thoughts when a journalist asked if I would be willing to chat with him for an article. I laughed and said he must have the wrong person. Nevertheless I went and checked, and found out what it all is about. ( I never did the interview though too shy… ;-p)
My klout was 54 then 57 eventually it got stuck on 50 and recently it droped to 41.
Lauging and chating to my friend @LXLEE about it and he told me his droped dramatically to 40!!!! (How he managed that is a mystery… on the other hand he probably is just a lazy ass ;-p) We also spoke about @AskAaronLee's blog post and about his recent 'Klout Test'
During that chat I suggested to have a race against one another ( how do I end up challenging you guys all the time?) about who's Klout will reach 50 first.
Boy it was a hard week! Today we updated and @LXLEE went from 40 to 60 and I went from 41 to 56. So he won! Congrats! Yeah we tweeted our asses off (I took a two day break though)!
Now my question to you Aaron. You tweeted alot too during your test but your Klout did not go up so dramatically. Does it go up less fast the higher you are ranked? Or did @LXLEE and I just do a terrific job? As your clients Klout 'only' went from 8 to 19 in a month. So how do you explain the relative fast climb?
I really love the post by the way. I find it soo geek and nerd extraordinaire of you to think up such things. π
Aaron Lee says
The dramatic increased was due to both you and alex already had an active readers and friends. Therefore helping you increased your klout score quickly because of the extra engagement + tweets send out.
Btw, I didn't tweet a lot during the time. I tested it through trials by sending out 3 tweets per hour without any engagement, 3 tweets + engagement etc, and yes it gets harder when its higher.
As for my clients klout score. Its a new twitter account compared to yours who already have friends. We concentrate on building relationships by helping their clients as well as retweeting tweets. No chats went through the time line.
Congrats to both you and Alex. π
Aaron
Misty Belardo says
Thank you for this Aaron!! Been experimenting too and my klout score now is up at 82 from last 5 days of 72. engagement is key it really did not make much difference when I just tweeted links, and the retweets also helps, but people responding with you on different levels help increase the score. What I mean here is if they reply to you or you reply back to them. The calculations i think is quiet balanced. Great post as always Aaron!! Love it!!
Aaron Lee says
Congrats Misty!
Engagement is key on twitter. I noticed with engagement it helps in retweets too seeing that they know you and they come back again to your time line to retweet a great post. Just posting links doesn't cut out π
Congrats again Misty!
Aaron
sarisignorelli says
Aaron, your Klout worked in a good way because you are funny, but Klout is encouraging a lot of mundane crap out there, so it's not hard core valid. If I look at a tweeter who has high Klout and then I go to their tweets and see they are mostly full of useless chatter, they really just have faux Klout. BTW: Laughter is definitely Klout worthy in my book–necessary daily activity! And you tweet some really useful stuff. So you have genuine Klout.
Justice Wordlaw says
Very great post that you did on this Aaron I never tried this Klout system before for my twitter but I know I would start using this. This sounds very useful in seeing how beneficial I really am when it comes to other twitter friends and followers.
Jeff Pinkham says
Nice post I’ll take that into consideration to bump my lowly Klout