Google+ Officially Now on Klout

Does Google+'s inclusion in Klout's ranking system increases the value of Google's social network?

Klout allowed users to add their Google+ account to their dashboard a couple of weeks ago after Google's social network released the Google+ API. Yesterday, Klout announced that Google+ is now officially part of its social influence measurement system with its Google+ scoring model.

Users who are active Google+ users will saw their Klout scores increase. Klout says its basis for measuring influence on Google+ is the rate of engagement public posts receive. Users who aren't on Google+ or simply don't want to include their G+ accounts to their Klout dashboard won't be penalized, but it wouldn't hurt to improve your Klout score by establishing a presence on Google+ and to increase visibility in social search as well.

According to Klout's blog, they are measuring influence of Google+ users who connected their accounts to Klout. Klout also says that 62% of users are active and their engagement levels on G+ will be the basis of their scores. Arguably, the king of Google+ is MySpace founder Tom Anderson who saw his Klout score increase from 64 to 77. But what's interesting is that ordinary users like nature photographer Tamara Pruessner is gaining some social media mileage that saw her score catapult from 11 to 67.

This only shows that users with low scores saw an increase by being active in Google's social network, but Google+ skeptics will dismiss that G+ being part of Klout computation is not necessary yet due to the fact that it only has 40 million users in tow. Here's a summary of Klout's announcement:

Active Google+ users on Klout will see an average Score increase of 2.177.

Active Google+ users tend to also be active on Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ allows for close interactions like Facebook, while retaining the ability to share widely like Twitter.

Users who see a big jump in score from Google+ generate a lot of discussion and engagement with focused, high-quality content.

My Take

Whether it’s Facebook or Google+ that your including in your Klout dashboard, a Klout score is a mere number to a customer. What I’ve noticed about the whole Klout issue that’s been trending for weeks now is that Klout has made social engagement a popularity contest and an ego-booster for some Internet marketers and social media strategists. It doesn’t matter if you keep or delete that Klout account of yours, an ordinary Internet user will not bother to research what Klout is. The real clout score can only be achieved on how a business can successfully integrate relevant social media platforms and make it work in synergy to generate leads. And now, with Google+ joining the Klout mix, will we finally see the value that Google+ can give to businesses?
Original source: http://squareberry.com/news/google-officially-now-on-klout/

Why Trends Are More Powerful Than Ads

After the launch of promoted tweets, Twitter intends to leverage one of its primary assets - celebrity accounts.

Before, advertising was limited to media such as TV, radio, and print. Today, social media platforms are making the Internet a destination-location for advertisers and consumers alike. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are the reason why a person who doesn't even have an email account still goes online. Indeed, Twitter is one of the most-used media of communication nowadays, so it's a no-brainer if a free service like this will monetize its service through ads. After all, free television moved in a similar way through TV commercials.

In a recent interview with NYmag , Twitter CEO Dick Costolo explains how the social platform will monetize its service. Twitter's promoted tweets were launched recently and users didn't seem to mind if these ads were somewhat disguised as ordinary tweets. It only shows that Twitter's recent foray to monetize the service is paying up as long as they don't overdo it. Costolo aims to use celebrities who are considered influencers to catapult ads to their followers without alienating followers of a celebrity such as Charlie Sheen or Justin Bieber. If Twitter wants to put hair conditioner ads on Justin Bieber's tweets than they can. Twitter intends to use a frictionless approach, which means that they might try inserting organic ads on every celebrity's tweet. Essentially, "frictionless" in this sense means presenting ads in a discreet manner. Arguably, the most discreet way of promoting a product or a service on Twitter would be using hashtags. Wouldn’t you agree?


While this might be a good thing to Twitter in order to maintain its service, the essence of viral marketing might be a goner here. We all know that if a trend is all over the Twittersphere, it spreads like wildfire on other media whether it's social or traditional. The notion of social media being a two-way communication between a consumer and a brand is not yet passe. The concern here however is that when you start shoving a product or an ad down people's throats or smartphones, it becomes invasive due to the interruption. Reality check: trends influence people and ads interrupt them.

Nonetheless, people won’t quit using Twitter, people still watch free TV, right? People won't mind the promoted tweets and ad-glazed celebrity tweets. Social platforms run on user-generated content to make something viral, and there's a reason why Twitter has a Trending List on the user interface - trends are more powerful than ads.