How I Raised My Klout Score By 40% In Four Days and What This Has To Do with Anything

I’ve been a bit obsessed lately with social media metrics. Partially because I’m a bit obsessed with metrics in general and partially because I’m a bit obsessed with the impact I have in the world. Impact is important to me. In certain terms, my life is about impact. And more specifically, intentional impact.

I’ve been playing with social media measurement tools the last few weeks. I have also created a few of my own social media measurement tools (specifically around blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter updates). I’ve been in an analytic wonderland which has been fantastic.

There is a key component of this wonderland that I’ve grown fond of - Klout.com. I’ve played with Klout a bit before, but have never spent much time with it. Over the last five days, I’ve checked my Klout rate often - like, six times a day. As I said, obsessive (and probably compulsive).

Checking in with Klout has added a loop into my social media engagement process: it’s inspired me to engage more. And in the last four days, my clout score has gone from 31 to 43. Actually, scratch that, I just checked again and it’s now 44. That’s a 41.935% increase!

Klout also says that I’m influential in yoga, spirituality, moms, and culture. I’m a bit bummed I’m not influential in business and social development. I’m a bit confused about why I’m influential in moms, but assume it’s because @jessicagottlied and I reply sometimes.

Having such a substantial increase in just a few days hasn’t been difficult, challenging or mysterious. The increase in my social media clout, at least on Twitter, came down to a simple thing: engagement.

Specifically:

• I posted more
• I replied more
• And I retweeted more

That’s it. I simply became more engaged with those around me.

This got me thinking more about impact: how active am I with those around in other environments? Am I offering the same engagement, attention and value to those I sit with face-to-face? (My fiancee would probably say no).

The environment of life is more challenging than the environment of twitter. Twitter is fairly linear and it transcends time to a certain degree - I can look backwards at tweets to catch up. Secondly, here’s not a face-to-face Klout scoring system I can reference.

Given my experience the last few days, I am now more inspired to offer value face-to-face in the same way I do on Twitter. In walking life, this looks like:

• Being present and participating with those around me (no mobile device distraction)
• Responding which requires real listening. A lot of listening, and
• Reflect what others or saying and doing

What’s your impact?