I took one hit of the Klout, an online tool that measures one’s “influence based on your ability to drive action” (or Klout Score as they’ve coined it), and I’m hooked.
It plays right into my need to “win at life” as a Millennial that has grown up to achieve and be competitive in almost every context. My fiance (@jillianlindsay) and I joke about who can fall asleep the fastest, swim the fastest (no contest she is a former d-one swimmer and crushes me), eat the most, etc. Even though we’re not serious about who wins or loses (how can you lose at falling asleep later??), the point is that performance tracking and the ability to always do something better, faster, smarter, etc. is hardwired into our DNA. Given this, and the fact that I only recently discovered my poor social score (around a 21/100 when I first started using the service), I have an incessant need to improve. For what? Hell if I truly know, but I am interested in testing the waters to see what types of content sharing improves or hinders my social performance. I’ve never been one to post every random thought (or do I?), but given Klout’s feedback and metrics – I now want to know how many people I influence (True Reach), how much I influence them (Amplification) and how influential they are (Network Score).
According to the Cassandra Reports Spring 2011 Trend School, the “Social Score = SAT score for life.” Think that pretty much sums up why Klout matters. Klout’s metrics and slick dashboard interface are the icing on the cake that keep me coming back like a crack fiend.
