A few years ago, ‘successful’ social media users were determined by just the number of followers they have. Someone sends you a follow request on Twitter and you take a good look at their profile, your eyes flying straight to the numbers of followers – 60 followers to 450 following? No way!
Today however, things have changed, such that level of engagement and quality of content, have become yardstick for measuring social media influence, with tools such as Klout, Twentyfeet, Crowdbooster, Tweetstats, etc all providing different ranking methods.
KLOUT however remains the most popular. This web and mobile app uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the “Klout Score”, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100.
You can get the best out of Klout by mastering these 5 features:
1 .Klout Score
This is the numerical value between 1 and 100 that a user is rated according to the amount of influence the user can exert. The Klout score growth or decline is heavily dependent on:
a. Social networks connected to your Klout account. Klout recognizes Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.
b. Your Twitter following and follower count, retweets, list memberships, spam/dead accounts following you, how influential the people who retweet you are and unique mentions.
c. Also, the number of other social network followings and interactions (likes, comments, tags, shares) are included to get the total Klout Score.
Klout compiles news, articles and opinions from different websites, blogs, corporations and authors from all parts of the world. These are grouped under 18 topics which lie beneath the content filter. You can choose from any of the categories and share on any of your connected social networks.
If you pay proper attention to social media, you would notice there are times when the users are most active. This is where the schedule feature in Klout comes in. The awesome thing about this feature is that you don’t have to be present before your posts go up. Sounds like an automatic pilot. Pretty cool eh?
- Daily Following Suggestions
Depending on the topics you choose, Klout provides you with a list of users who also share similar interests with you. Just follow, engage them and build a network.
- Measuring and Tracking Impact
The 90 day score history helps you monitor your level of interactivity in the last 3 months. Your recent activity is also graded, post by post, while your network contribution is graded according to the social networks connected to your Klout account. This helps you know where you’re making the most impact and on what social network you’re slacking.
Regardless of the breakdown of these features, one still needs to practise. Try posting different kinds of content to see which appeals to your audience more. Post at different times of the day to know what time your followers are most active. Understanding audience behaviour can help in building and managing successful social media accounts.
All tips and no practice makes Femi a dull boy.
Compiled by Oyinda Bamgbola