I know many people think Klout, the social network reputation measurement service, is utter nonsense or even evil. Too bad. Klout does matter. Businesses may give you work or a job depending on your Klout score. You may find that troubling. Deal with it. What I find far more troubling is that Klout scores can bounce up and down like hyperactive five-years old on a trampoline.
What the heck is your social network reputation you ask? According to Esther Schindler, co-author of the forthcoming book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Twitter Marketing, while “No one can comfortably compare how important one person is compared to another,” the bottom line is that “some people can have more of an impact on your company than can others and that’s why services have sprung up to measure social media influence. ” Klout isn’t the only company that tries to measure this–PeerIndex and TweetGrader do as well-but it’s the most important of them.
I used to think Klout was dumb… and then an editor who was trying to talk me into writing a book wanted to know what my Klout score was. Since then I’ve talked to others and they tell me that their would-be employers wanted to see high Klout scores before giving them a job or contract. So, while you may doubt Klout’s value, your potential employers do care about your Klout score.