Klout–Why Should I Even Care?
Recently, I started receiving emails from Klout. Okay, so these things don’t just happen out of the blue for no reason. I acknowledge that. Apparently I signed up for it, bright cookie that I am, but forgot I had. I do have a vague recollection of this awhile back. I mean, you hear about something on someone else’s blog and you go to check it out. You sign in and bam! they’ve got you in their clutches.
So more numbers, more stats to deal with, more reasons to make me want to bug you all with my presence on the Internet. But really, is all this necessary? Is this actually going to, in any way, enrich my life? Or is it an attempt to keep me chained to my computer?
Maybe we’re becoming a society who worries too much about the numbers in our lives rather than the people who are there? We fool ourselves into thinking we’re being a good friend if we *like* each other’s posts on Facebook when this good friend is a cup of coffee away from us. You know, back in the old days when people actually dropped in to say Hi! They maybe even sat across from you and chatted about things that actually mattered, none of which involved numbers.
Truthfully, I’d like someone to explain why I should even care about the numbers on Klout.Will knowing how many people I have influenced in anyway make my life richer?
I know, I know, why complain about something that I signed up for, just ignore it or embrace it. 🙂 Hmm, I wonder if this post about Klout will improve my Klout ratings.
What are your thoughts on Klout? Is it a great tool to measure our influence on others or just one more way the internet has of tracking our lives?
Posted by Laura Best on May 18, 2012
https://lauraabest.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/klout-why-should-i-even-care/
Laura Best 
ratiganknits
/ May 18, 2012I have to say, like you, I signed up and then promptly forgot I signed up. Again, like you… I wonder does it matter? Last few times I’ve received a notification I haven’t even looked it. So I guess, I just don’t care that much. I’ll check back with your comments later today and see if I learn something 🙂
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 18, 2012I was totally taken by surprise when I received notifications. One was to tell me that someone I knew had just joined. Whoopee!
I really don’t understand the concept and I’m pretty sure this will be one of those things that I’ll end up dissolving into oblivian.My mind is sometimes good at that thank goodness 🙂
LikeLike
Diane Tibert
/ May 18, 2012Laura, this is the first I heard of Klout. I suppose I should check it out, but like you, I wonder if we should worry about the numbers. If we are happy doing what we’re doing, the numbers don’t matter.
I hear many people talk about their ‘standings’ at Amazon.com for Kindle. They often post their books for free, giving away hundreds, sometimes thousands, just to raise their standings in the rankings. Should it matter to me if my book is 5,678 in the ranking when there are only 5,667 books listed? At this point, I’m not. That is where my book probably is because it has been listed only a week or so.
Should I give away hundreds of books, hoping for a few sales for my efforts? I’m not sold on that sales method. Yet.
One thing I’ve noticed regarding numbers. I’ve sometimes had more than 300 views a day on my blog and no one has signed up to follow it. Other times, I’ve had two views and gained a follower. The numbers don’t tell the real story.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012I’m with you, Diane. I don’t understand all these free book giveaways for ebooks although we see it all the time. I also agree that numbers don’t tell the whole story. If Klout measures all the likes, and comments on blogs and facebook, and your interaction on twitter etc, if you’re posting silly things, or making lame comments, how influential can you really be? I think it’s just one more thing to make people strive to raise their numbers.
LikeLike
depressionavoyage
/ May 18, 2012This is the first time I heard of Klout. Your question should you worry about your numbers, well depends when it comes to selling your book yes and no depending on your market. If your market are peoeple who spend a lot of time on the internet high numbers are good but if your market are people who are out in the world living lives then high numbers don’t matter that much.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012I suppose, these numbers might make a difference to some, especially when it comes to book sales. Some books are only available on line as ebooks, etc. But as Joylene mentioned a few posts back, we are continually told that what sells books is word of mouth. It’s interesting, however, and I’m sure time will tell how effective.
LikeLike
ramblingsfromtheleft
/ May 18, 2012Laura, if I hear about one more method of succeeding in social netwosrking, I think I’ll blow up my digital high speed connection and go back to black analog phones !!! Klout reinforces the number games, collecting friends, counting blog comments and followers, doing the mandatory number of tweets daily. No … not for the love of social graces and sanity … enough is enough 🙂 Love this. Thanks.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012I know how you feel, Florence. I sometimes wonder where it will all end. It is really just a contant stream of new information coming at us. This is why I write historical fiction…much simplier times. 🙂
LikeLike
Joylene Butler (@cluculzwriter)
/ May 18, 2012I’ve see the name before, but I wasn’t sure so I looked it up. I’m feeling so ovewhelmed these days that I hope I didn’t sign up. Knowing me, I probably did. All this info sources makes my head spin. Did you hear this morning about Facebook shares? A rockstar in the States has stocks worth a billion dollars. My first thought was, What if he sells? What will that do to the company? Apparently, he doesn’t want to sell because he wants more money. More money than a billion dollars!!! What’s wrong with this picture?
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012I heard about the FB shares. A billion dollars worth of shares!!!! Can you imagine? Why WOULD one want more than a billion?…There’s just something wrong with that. Imagine all the people you could help in the world instead of hoarding it for yourself. Imagine how many of OUR books he could have bought, Joylene. I say it just ain’t fair. 😉
LikeLike
pattisj
/ May 18, 2012Haven’t heard of it, and don’t think I’ll go check it out, either. Thanks for the heads up.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012I don’t think you’re missing much, Patti. 🙂
LikeLike
fivecats
/ May 18, 2012Klout, never heard of them before.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012So, you heard it here first.. Tread lightly. You’ve been warned. 🙂
LikeLike
Darlene
/ May 19, 2012This is a new one for me as well. Don’t think I will bother though as I am happy with the social networking I am doing right now. Sometimes, enough is enough.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012Sometimes we need to pass, Darlene. I guess I’m too curious for my own good. It will end up being ignore for the most part I’m sure. Until they send the next notification.
LikeLike
C.B. Wentworth
/ May 19, 2012Hmmm . . . I’ve never heard of Klout. However, I can relate to how a number seems to mean so much. We are a society obsessed with numbers . . . age, clothing size, stats, etc. I have fallen into some of those traps and often question why I place so much value on a number.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012It seems that most everyone who reads my blog hasn’t heard of it C.B. We are a society obsessed with numbers as if our worth always comes down to it. It starts when we’re in school and are evaluated by how high we score on tests and exams. We’re conditioned to it. I do think most of us keep track of numbers on some level.
LikeLike
Carol
/ May 19, 2012Online relationships are wonderful, but when we start obsessing about how many of them we have, the numbers can become more important than the people themselves. Although I rarely access the stats, I already get an e-mail when someone leaves me a FB comment or mentions me on FB, sends a Tweet to or about me, leaves a comment on my blog. If I want, I can access find out how many people subscribe to or read my blog. I can even see the countries those readers come from. How much more do I really need to know about my participation in social media? I already know I spend WAY too much time here!
Klout is all about numbers and not much else. If you were a marketing guru you might want to know how many people you reach, how often they read or respond something you’ve posted, and how many others those people reach by sharing your information, but it’s definitely not my thing. It would just be another time waster for me.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 19, 2012When my daughter added the live traffic fed to my blog she laughingly called it “taking nosy to a whole other level.” She wasn’t far off.
I honestly can’t see myself caring about the whole business with Klout. Had I not receved any notifications from the I would have forgotten all about it. That’s how they get people, I think. Sames as Twitter. I received an email a few weeks back because I hadn’t logged in for months. Truthfully, while I think some people believe whole-heartedly in what the numbers have to say, Klout can’t take into consideration the human factor. Someone keeping track of the amount of “likes” I might get on a FB status, to me, doesn’t seem like a very influencial thing to me. (But what do I know.)
LikeLike
Punam J R
/ May 20, 2012I don’t know much about Klout, but I do know that yes, life has become a collection of numbers everywhere: the number of friends on FB, the number of likes, the number of bloggers on your latest blog post, the number of comments received, and so on and so forth.
Sometimes, it’s like someone is tracking you all the time.. and you realise most of the times, it’s Uncle Google.
He is like.. he has his tentacles spread everywhere… Even on youtube, he takes your gmail id and signs you in..
pheww.w…
Prying eyes!! You can see my distress. One of the Feedjit widgets on my blog actually put me in trouble with a stalker who kept recording my own location through the feedjit on my blog – how grossssss!!!
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 20, 2012While there is so much talk about privacy these days and protecting people’s information, there is constantly more and more information being gathered about us. Some of it seems useless.
LikeLike
Punam J R
/ May 20, 2012And yesss,,, Laura, I so so sooooooo love the new design of your blog. Have I told you that before??? If yes, I would like to reiterate – its beaaaaaaaaaautiful!
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 20, 2012Glad you like it, Punam! It’s a huge big change from what I had. 🙂
LikeLike
Linda Cassidy Lewis
/ May 20, 2012Apparently, I signed up for Klout and then forgot it too. I get those emails, but I ignore them because I haven’t a clue what Klout is about. I don’t care.
As for the ebook giveaways, I got more sales in the week after my first giveaway than I’d sold in ten months! That’s the power of the free! What happens is the freebies count as sales so your book rises in the charts where PEOPLE CAN SEE IT EXISTS. Otherwise, my book is lost in a sea of millions. After the free period ends, your book ranks high for a while so customers see it, are interested, and PAY for it.
However, Amazon has changed their algorithms, so the freebies no longer count as equal sales, so though you still make more sales than you would have without the giveaway, it’s nothing like the first time I tried it.
It doesn’t matter how good your book is if no one knows it exists.
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 20, 2012Thanks for explaining a bit about the free give aways. I really didn’t understand how they work. There is so much I still don’t understand about Amazon anyway since I don’t purchase books that way. I’m not very Internet savy. Obviously you’re able to see the sales ranks on a book on the Amazon site and people look at these when purchasing books. I only ever imagined people searching for a particular book they’d heard of and then buying it. Shows what I know.
LikeLike
Lynn A. Davidson
/ May 24, 2012Laura, even though this is a late reply since you have posted twice since this one, I am offering this info. I hadn’t thought anything about Klout since I didn’t even understand what it is, having only seen K+ whatever in tweets on Twitter. Just today I read a post that gives much detail about Klout and I thought of you when I saw it. Perhaps this will help: http://bit.ly/KA6uQc
LikeLike
Laura Best
/ May 24, 2012Thanks Lynn, I’ll check it out for sure. 🙂
LikeLike