How Klout could make +K better (and less game-able)

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Rebecca Denison


I know what you’re thinking. I’ve never really had a nice word to say about Klout. And I’ve been too critical of them.

Klout is trying to measure something that is inherently impossible to quantify. But they are giving us all a head start, and their algorithm and methods are pretty good. They’re not perfect, and I still would never recommend using Klout as an end-all for anything, but they’re not evil or anything. :)

With the release of +K, Klout added a new layer for influence measurement. Now your peers can help boost your influence on certain topics. Topical relevance is extremely important when measuring influence, but does this method really do what it needs to do? It’s a great idea in theory, but in practice there is a chance people will game the system.

If you give me a +K on rainbows, I’ll give you a +K, too! (No matter that I’ve never influenced you on anything, let alone rainbows.)

One way to improve the +K system and maybe discourage gaming would be to make one +K more valuable depending on who gives it. If someone influential in a topic gives you a +K for that topic, that should mean more than a +K from someone random, right?

The more you influence other influencers, the more influential you are. That is a confusing sentence, but it’s true!

If I’m one of the foremost influencers on rainbows, then if I give you a +K on rainbows, that must mean you are also pretty darn influential. If your mom gives you a +K, it may not carry the same value, but it will still boost your influence.

Those who may not be as well-known, but have a small and loyal audience will still get extra points for every +K they receive. And  in theory, these +K’s should help to propel you and get you attention from the so-called “big guys.”

That’s just my theory, though. How this could be accomplished and built into the current algorithm, I really don’t know. But I think it would help.

What do you think? How would you improve Klout or the new +K system?

About Rebecca Denison

Passionate UNC graduate (and basketball fan) interested in social media and measurement. As a biochemist-turned-communications professional, I spend my days as a senior social media analyst at Digitas in Chicago. Through my work, I have been able to establish social media monitoring and measurement best practices. I’m excited to explore more aspects of online measurement like traditional Web analytics, search metrics and integrated data models as I continue to learn and grow.
This entry was posted in Influence, Measurement, Social Media, Social media influence. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://twitter.com/erob1 Evan E. Roberts

    Nice! I like you suggestion of weighting +K’s based on the level of influence someone already has, but if a Klout score is faulty math in and of itself, would the weighting scale really be accurate?

    I was actually mulling over this in my last blog post: http://evanprblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/some-thoughts-on-influence-and-k.html

    Obviously yours is more well-worded but I think we come to about the same conclusion. There are some pretty clear flaws with the system and gaming will certainly be a problem they’ll have to address soon.

    Evan

  • http://rebeccaadenison.com Rebecca Denison

    I think the math is what it is. It doesn’t necessarily measure influence, but it measures things that could possibly indicate influence.

    And I’m with you all the way, I hope they’ll address some of their problems soon!

  • http://shadboots.com Shad Boots

    According to a few others I’ve read, +K doesn’t affect your Klout score at the moment. They’re still trying to figure out how to factor that into the algorithm without messing things up too bad. But I could be wrong. 

    The Klout scores are broken in their current form (I’ve mentioned it before, but honestly, why is my score as high as it is?). And I don’t see a way of improving on that. Influence is difficult to define, let alone quantify. If they do it, I’ll be pretty impressed. 

    Now, since I’m interested in Neuroscience (which is something you’ll probably be familiar with), it would be really cool if they could combine the two.

  • http://rebeccaadenison.com Rebecca Denison

    I’ve been meaning to update this post, I realized about a week after I wrote it that +K does not yet affect your Klout score.

    The scores will never, ever measure influence. I think we can both agree on that. It will measure some cool metrics which might be able to help human analysts more easily determine influence, but you can’t put a single metric on influence.

    It would still be cool to see them make this work….maybe one day. :)

  • http://www.thesocialmetrics.com Chris Dowsett

    I’m with you — I don’t really have a nice thing to say about Klout but I don’t think they’re evil. As a statistician, I see HUGE faults in their influence measurement but as someone involved in social media, I take my hat off to their marketing team. They took what should be objective measure and turned it into a game … which made it very popular and not, at all, objective. :)

  • http://thesocialmetrics.com/2011/08/klout-is-just-a-game-and-that-makes-it-game-able/ Klout is just a game and that makes it game-able – the social metrics

    [...] I can give you Klout on Unicorns and you can give me Klout on Rainbows. Yay for us. [...]

  • http://rebeccaadenison.com Rebecca Denison

    I’m glad to know someone who actually knows what they’re talking about (a REAL stats man!) agrees with me. They measure a lot of things, many of which are helpful, but none of which are influence. Oh well.

  • http://twitter.com/bradheitmann Brad Heitmann

    I’ve been gaming the heck out of Klout as part of one week “Klout-Off” competition with someone. I’d say the biggest issue is relevance. I may be really really influential with my set of world-of-warcraft junkies, but if I were to tweet about the superbowl (soccer, right?) they couldn’t care less. Influence, hence, is contextual. Despite my love, my obsession, my life shattering fixation on my Klout score (shattering to the lives of others of course), I realize at the end of the day it’s not terribly relevant…. yet. 

  • http://rebeccaadenison.com Rebecca Denison

    Context, context, context. I recently wrote a blog post on a friend’s blog, and context was a big piece of my definition of influence. I may be influential on something like UNC basketball, but I’ve never played WOW, so I hope you won’t listen to a word I say about it!!