It’s no secret that the Internet is getting more social, and that some of the most recognized individuals are the people who are able to leverage their social authority to become tastemakers and thought-leaders. If you take a step back, you can even tell that the social media networks that were once thought to be designed to keep you in touch with your friends are now more obviously serving a different purpose: linking you with various (or your own) brands and catalyzing word-of-mouth advertising.
But without a definitive metric with which to measure this influence, improving your social dominance can be confusing and frustrating. There have been several attempts to quantify social media “influence,” but one of the most successful thus far is Klout. Klout is a service that aggregates your social media interactions across various services, and uses a set of algorithms to give you a score based on how influential you are.
Klout recently released their long awaited iPhone app, so let’s take a look.
Getting Started
Depending on which services you have linked with your Klout account, you can sign into Klout for iPhone with your Twitter or Facebook account.
Login with Twitter or Facebook.
If you don’t have a Klout account, you’ll have to set it up using a computer. If you head to klout.com, you’ll be able to create an account that is linked with either your Twitter or Facebook account, and then you’ll be able to link additional services including Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, etc. Klout has stated that you should never be afraid of adding networks that you’re less interactive on, because adding networks can only help your Klout score.
While the webpage has a row of favicons on your homepage to show you which services you’ve linked to your Klout profile, the iPhone app only shows the big three (Facebook, Twitter, Google+).
Tracking Your Klout Score
Klout has two tabs on the main screen where information is displayed.
The first tab is the Notifications screen. At the present, notifications seem limited to changes in your Klout score (let us know if you see anything else in your notifications feed!), but we may see this change in future updates. As with Klout’s webpage, almost everything can be shared via Facebook or Twitter, and this goes for the changes in your Klout score as well.
As you can see, my Klout score sort of hovers.
The second tab is your profile. Here, all of your information is displayed nicely, including your profile image, your prominently-featured Klout score, the services you’ve linked and your mini bio. As you scroll down, you can see various types of information (which are all products of the Klout algorithms) including the people you influence and the people who influence you, all of which can be tapped to see their profiles. Finally, the bottom of your profile displays a top three list of topics about which Klout believes you to be influential.
My influential topics are pretty predictable.
Finally, there is a somewhat limited preferences menu, with access to some push notification settings. You can also change the behavior of the home screen icon, which has the capability of displaying your Klout score as an icon badge. However, if you’re like me and have most of your home screen icons displaying badges, it might take you a while to overcome the miniature anxiety attack that comes from waking your phone from sleep mode and seeing a badge that says “42.”
Preferences
The Verdict
The app, despite being much later in its arrival than I’d hoped, is pretty well designed. The layout is clean and attractive, the color scheme is pleasant and the app functions really well. However, I’m simply a person that likes to have iPhone versions of as many apps and services as I can. And as this is a v1.0 release, I can only hope that the app will improve with time.
The web version of Klout has many features (not present in the iPhone app) that would improve the value of an iPhone app, such as managing +K (sort of like “Likes” on Facebook), Perks (rewards for exceptional Klout scores), Achievements and Lists. But I will concede, a majority of users might find the current iteration of the Klout iPhone app a bit superfluous.
See, building and maintaining social influence across your social networks is certainly a full-time job and something that takes tact and strategy. However, the Klout score itself is simply the product of a set of algorithms, and as such a very passive service for its users. Incorporating more of the interactive features of the service into the iPhone app would do wonders for it’s value.
Is the Klout app for iPhone good? Yes. But is it necessary? That’s for you to decide.