Alan Draper
I am a geek at heart, a lover of data, analytics, measurement, and ability to provide and measure real return on investment. When Klout launched I was one of their first fans. It was exciting to see something that could possibly help us finally begin to start measuring and justifying the hours we spent on the social networks.
Many had high hopes for Klout. We believed their agenda was pure and that their top goal was to build a credible and robust influence measurement system. We have several large clients in the travel and leisure niche that we were considering Klout as a potential source for connecting with influencers.
If you have been any part of the active social ecosystem the past few weeks it’s hard to miss the noise about the Klout algorithm changes and the backlash that followed.
After much research, conversation and analysis I have decided to delete my Klout profile. Many people have asked me why via Twitter. It’s too much to answer via 140 characters so it was time for a blog post.
Important Note: The purpose of this post is to provide the reasons I deleted my Klout profile. It is NOT to bash Klout, pick fights or cause overall negativity. I am confident in my decision and simply want to educate those who are asking me why. You don’t have to agree with me, you don’t have to like my decision. I encourage you to share your opinions as well.
I owe it to my followers, colleagues and clients. I have clients who have asked us to be accountable to meeting goals on increasing Klout scores. Given this, I have no choice but to share with them (and you) my honest opinion on how much I think their Klout scores matter in regard to their success at becoming and evolving as a social business.
I wish the employees of Klout the best. I hope they are able to help Klout mitigate the risks it has created for itself. There is still a large gap in the social ecosystem for social influence measurement.
Of course Klout could still do an about face and leverage their success to date to win back the hearts and tweet streams of those they’ve lost and/or will lose over the coming months. However, my belief is they have a long way to go. Would I ever go back to Klout should they work out their issues? They will have to earn my trust again, but yes, it could happen.
For more insight into my overall thoughts on social influence measurement including how I believe it’s causing some to behave like puppets I suggest you check out this post prior to reading and/or commenting on this article. It will give you more insight into my thoughts and opinions overall. This post is intended to only share specifically why I am deleting my Klout profile. “Stop the Social Puppetry for Klout & Other Influence Metrics”
1. Privacy Issues
Klout believes that “everyone has Klout.” Even if you don’t create a Klout profile they might just create one for you. They have implemented an “opt-in to opt-out” model. In order to opt-out of Klout you must first opt-in which means you have to connect a profile or else send them a note to delete. Neither option for deletion is obvious or easy to find on their website for a novice user who doesn’t eat, sleep and breath tweets and K+’s all day like we do.
They created Klout profiles for minors who never signed up for Klout. Yes, minors as in kids under the age of 18. There are numerous reports of children being exploited on Klout with profiles that were created from data scrapes via the Facebook API. This happened supposably for Facebook profiles that were set to private or public. There are profiles of minors who were being listed as “influential” on the Klout website because they had liked or commented on a post of someone who actually had a Klout profile. My understanding is even minors with private accounts were being pulled into Klout because they commented on a public post. Does Facebook need to take responsibility here as well? Absolutely. However, for this specific conversation and post we are talking specifically about Klout.
I am connected to many minors in our local community. I refuse to be the medium that exploits minors who have connected to me on Facebook in trust because I have a Klout profile.
Imagine the teen girls you know who snap a photo of the Saturday night slumber party. One of them uploads the photo to Facebook and assigns it as her profile photo. Then come Monday morning the same girl has a profile plastered on Klout with the photo of her and her two best friends in their jammies because Klout decided she is a top influencer of someone with a Klout profile!
Danny Brown summarizes some of the concerns on the Facebook scraping and Klout profiles of minors in this post: “Is Klout Using our Family to Violate our Privacy?”
2. They tricked me into connecting networks that aren’t included in scoring algorithm
I learned today that although Klout states they integrate with 13 networks, the truth is only 4 actually impact your score (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and FourSquare). Reading their latest post and comment stream on “Understanding the Klout Score Part 1” I was shocked to discover that even though they announced these networks in two blog posts they forgot to mention that the scores are not included. “Measuring Klout on 10 Networks” “Google+ Now Has Klout” I am yet to find anywhere on their blog or website where it states such.
The question was asked by someone on their blog this evening. Klout replied with “you’re right, we haven’t done a good job of making it very clear which networks are simply connected and which are part of the score.” However, earlier today in this post on NY Times “Are You a V.I.P.? Check Your Klout Score” Klout’s CEO, Joe Fernandez is quoted stating “We analyze data from 13 different online networks and take into account reactions to a person’s content.”
So which is it Klout? Are all 13 online networks analyzed and taken into account of new algorithm? Or is it as stated via your blog comments that it’s only Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and Foursquare?
3. They ignored the people who helped build them & wanted them to succeed
They launched a new algorithm late last month. They claimed transparency as a key feature of the new launch and algorithm. If you call transparency a single chart on their blog then you can believe the hype. Immediately after the launch they seem to have disappeared into a dark K+ tunnel. They finally came out of hiding this week with a blog post trying to offer some answers.
This I think is their biggest mistake second only to the privacy issues. If there are issues with the algorithm then come forward. You hide and don’t respond, you lose trust. You lose my trust, you lose me.
Myself and many others sent numerous messages via the Klout contact forms, emails and tweets trying to get answers to some key questions. I wanted to help them. I wanted them to take responsibility for errors. Their answers were weak at best. They avoided 75% of my questions. Their responses were a shame to what started out as a great company with great opportunity to provide value to an audience and ecosystem who needed them and wanted them to succeed.
I requested to have my profile deleted five days ago. I sent an email, replied to @MeganBerry on blog comments, sent tweets, submitted the delete profile form on the Klout website. As of this afternoon my Klout profile was still active.
4. Conflicting agendas
There is nothing wrong with building a business to make money. I hope to retire with a nice fat payday at some point in the future from the sale of my own company. It is not bad Klout wants to make money. It is not bad Klout wants to IPO.
My concern is what appears to be conflicting agendas. On one hand they are repeatedly quoted stating “we empower the individual”. They claim to be the standard in influence measurement. However, on the other hand they are are using that same measurement and collection of our data to make money from day one, while they are still in beta. It’s obvious they have issues with the algorithm. It’s obvious their system is still in beta. However, that doesn’t stop them from promoting it as a standard for influence measurement. It doesn’t stop them from charging brands upwards of $25k just to be part of a perks program. I think their percieved credibility would be exponentially higher would they have first focused on getting the measurement correct.
Regardless if we like or believe it or not we are the product of Klout, not the client. Their clients are the ones who are writing the checks. They write the checks for the products which are you and me. Because you have your social networks connected to Klout, because you give K+’s like a puppet, you retweet and talk to influencers so you can raise your Klout score. No, you may not personally do it this way, but many are.
5. A Klout score is not the same as a Google Page Rank or a credit score.
I have seen people compare the Klout measurement to credit scores. This is an apples to oranges comparison. Credit scores are governed and consumers are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The credit companies don’t publish a score publicly without your permission. The credit companies don’t create a score for you before they have accurate information such as your social security number, address etc. The credit companies publish content explaining your rights, privacy policies that don’t change overnight because of a Twitter backlash. Yes, there is still some unknown black smoke with credit scoring algorithms but it is not the same as Klout.
As for the Google page rank, I have seen @MeganBerry from Klout respond on numerous posts stating Klout is similar to the Google page rank for websites. I disagree. We choose to have our websites public. We choose what images appear, what content is live. With Klout we don’t choose to have a score. Unless you opt-in to opt out you may just have a score and don’t know it!
6. Unexplained inaccuracies and wackiness in algorithm
There are too many issues to list them all on this post. Below are a few of the many wacky data results that I witnessed with my own personal account and Klout was unable to explain.
a. I was retweeted by @Alyssa_Milano with 1.8 million followers. Within a couple hours of her sending the retweet I had over 950 retweets. You’d think this would possibly increase my score? Wrong, from this day forward my score continuously dropped. When I asked Klout the reason they said I must not be getting engagement from as many influential followers as I did before.
b. Removal of 7 networks did not change my Klout score. As soon as I heard of the privacy issues after the algorithm change I removed 7 of the social networks I had connected. Surprisingly this had zero impact to my score. Klout also admitted in their latest post that up to now they focused on your top network as the primary network influencing your score. Also as per number 2 above I now know that only 4 of the social networks actually impact our scores versus the 13 I was falsely led to believe.
c. They had not pulled my Facebook data in almost 60 days. According to Facebook they had not requested my data via the API since late August. Yet, when I had contacted them after the Alyssa Milano retweet noted above, they were confident that the score was accurate. How can a score be accurate when data is not pulled from a key network such as Facebook for 60 days? When they replied to my email on this question they didn’t answer the question. They instead answered stating I had the Facebook profile removed from Klout. Yes, by the time they replied I did because of the privacy issues. However, they never addressed the question as to why the data hadn’t been accessed in almost 60 days. I immediately sent a reply email asking for clarification and never received a response.
d. Immediately after the algorithm change the people I influenced changed to “un-influencers.” Almost all of them had Klout scores of 12 or less. I am mentioned and retweeted 100-200+ times per day by new and good friends I engage with regularly. I don’t believe that these spam accounts are the top folks who I influence.
e. There were 3 people listed as influencers who appeared to be spam accounts with almost identical stats. Not only did they have the exact same number of followers, following but the most shocking was that they had only sent two tweets ever. What’s even worse is all three accounts had send the same two tweets. One of them just so happened to be a retweet of one of my tweets. It took numerous emails and questions to Klout to get an answer on this. When they finally did respond they stated I must have been affected by a temporary “glitch.” For approximately one day the people I influenced changed to real people with real Klout scores. However, within a day it was back to a list of spammers with scores in the teens.
f. My score continued to drop this week even after I removed all 8 social networks. I removed 7 of the social networks as soon as I found out about the privacy issues. This left Twitter as the only connected network. However, even after I removed Twitter from Klout as well as revoked access to Klout via my Twitter profile my score continued to drop. How can this be? Either they are publishing a declining score based upon no new data or they are pulling my data from somewhere without my approval. This has privacy issues written all over it.
7. It causes confusion for my clients.
Although if it wasn’t for the privacy issues, part of me would like to keep my Klout score active so I can stay up to date on how it changes, integration with other networks, etc. However, should I choose to do this it would cause confusion and questions for my clients. If my recommendation to them is that Klout is not a valid measurement for infleunce and that they should not waste time on it, it does not line up well with me keeping the Klout score active. They will obviously question why I tell them to do one thing yet I do the opposite.
In all honesty I have clients who have much better things to do than to spend a moment worrying about their Klout score. They are hiring our agency to help them become a social business. They expect results and they expect us to direct them on how to best spend their time to get there. At this time I can’t ethically tell them that they should give a second look to their Klout score as a credible source of influence measurement.
8. Because I want to.
Bottom line I don’t have to have a reason to delete my Klout score. I don’t trust their motives, their actions and now based on most recent learnings today am having a hard time trusting their word.
I have better things to do than worry about my Klout score. My clients and I are building real businesses that generate real revenue. None of us are or will ever be defined by a score from any vendor.
Your Turn
What are your thoughts?
Additional Resources & Opinions:
Is Klout Using our Family to Violate our Privacy? – Danny Brown
Understanding the Klout Score Part 1 – Klout
Privacy Fail: Klout Has Gone Too Far – Tonia Ries
Klout Score Fail – Inc.com via Curt Finch & Renee Oricchio
My Klout Experiment & the Disturbing Results — Robert Caruso
Klouts Other Major Fail: Violating Historical Integrity / Accuracy — Dan York
Are You a V.I.P.? Check Your Klout Score – NY Times
Why I Disabled My Klout Account — Mark Dempsey
Delete Your Klout Profile Now — Social Media today via Rohn Jay Miller
Exposed Klout Scores Still Garbage After All These Days — Social Media Today via Hollis Tibbets
Lies, Damned Lies & Klout Lies – Social Media Today via Hollis Tibbets
Klout’s Scoring Changes Incite a Riot of Complaints – The Next Web
17 Alternatives to Klout – Read Write Web
Your Klout Score Probably Just Dropped, Do You Care? – Read Write Web
Is Klout on the Way Out? – Jure Klepic
Stop the Social Puppetry for Klout & Other Influence Metrics — Pam Moore
Video: CEO Wants Klout: Days of Our Social Business – Pam Moore
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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Wow!
Not very helpful comment, I know… but for once I’m lost for words. I find lots of these algorithms a bbit hard to swallow. actually. No name, no pack drill, as they say ;-)
A few comments. I like the post Pam. And a few of your points are completely valid. The Klout score service has been a working project since day one. They have never hid that, but of course it is something people should complain about to encourage a better product on their end. But I take issue with a couple points.
The only way they can put a profile from another social network onto Klout is if you sign up or if your profile is public. If your profile is public, anyone can pull the data from an API. If your profile is public anyone on those social networks can view it. If your profile is public, anyone can see you in search. It is not Klout’s falt that some mom put her 13 year old son on Facebook and then set his profile to public. If people do not want their kids online, they need to setup private accounts for them OR no accounts.
Also, Facebook is already exploiting each person on their social network with ads targeted down to the movies and shoes that they like, their age, city, etc. Tell me who is exploiting more.
Klout as two audiences, the users (the product) and the people who buy access to their data (advertisers, etc). Guess what, this is every social network that exists. If you unplug from them for that, then you should really unplug from all social networks. They are all selling your data, giving more attention to advertisers.
I would agree they should have been more transparent on many fronts, including the networks that do not contribute to the score. They genuinely want to have these networks contribute to the score but needed these people to plugin to research how they work first. I get it from their end, and I think if they were upfront they still would have gotten what they needed.
The fact that they are replying to blog comments now and answering hard questions and disclosing where they are wrong or improving things is good. I think they are turning a corner and trusting their users a bit more. Even though people will always get low scores for one reason or another and have bad feelings toward them . It is unavoidable with what they do.
I think if you have clients, removing yourself from the network is never going to help you clear up their confusion. In the end, if you do not trust Klout, which is anyone’s right, you should probably look a bit closer at what Facebook and Twitter is doing with your data and what their motives are.
Thanks for starting a conversation.
Jason – thanks for your comment. I think you missed one important point in regard to privacy. The issue is Klout was pulling in PRIVATE accounts of minor. They were being pulled in if they commented on a PUBLIC post.
I agree with you on many points including the fact many social networks including Facebook are exploiting their users. One difference is they are not putting their photo with a score next to it on a network they didn’t know about or opt-in to.
Until these privacy issues are cleared up I am not going to reconnect my data to Klout. It has caused confusion with clients. Several of them asked me directly “then why do you still have a Klout profile if it isn’t a valid measurement. ” Many biz leaders do not have the knowledge we do in this space. They hear of Klout and the next thing ya’ know their CEO has a goal set for it. I have seen it happen. I have had CEOs tell me they want a score as high as mine. So yes, for me it wastes time given where Klout is now and the lack of response I received from them regarding questions.
I am happy Joe responded on my blog via comments and am happy to have the continued dialog with him and the Klout team. I just wish it also could have started sooner. I tried. I have always wanted them to succeed. I think many people do.
Pam – Thank you for writing this post. It’s one of the most noteworthy posts on Klout (being critical or otherwise) that I’ve seen in quite a long time. Couple of points where I agree entirely:
1. Conflicting agendas – Agree with your points here, and I do wish that Klout would lead with “science” and not with trying to be the end all be all solution for people. It really isnt, and will probably never be.
2. Page rank and credit card – Completely agree, and when I read this post for the first time I realized something…One of Klout’s biggest flaws is that they lead with their sales people. Joe is a passionate guy, and he’s public, but I would prefer they lead with developers and people who have helped to build the algorithm. I think we’d learn a heck of a lot more about the tool.
3. Confusion for clients – I’m going back and forth on your point here… I hear what you’re saying, but part of me says it’s our job to explain the value. Perks has value. The scores? Not so much.
Where we disagree (slightly) –
1. Ignoring the people who helped them build the platform – The last time I was in San Francisco, I reached out to Joe to see if he would be willing to meet. He did. In fact, he spent two hours with me explaining what they were doing and why. If you reach out to him, I guarantee you’d get answers. And, to your other point, they do take feedback like the kind you can provide. Trust me.
2. The wackiness in the algorithm – Yes, it’s true that the scores seem to fluctuate. But, at least from my perspective, they are trying to test and learn where the algorithm provides the most accurate result. If it results in daily fluctuations in your score, so be it. Frankly, I’m not sure we should be looking at our scores daily.
Anyway, great post, Pam. Enjoyed reading it.
Chuck, point taken. I guess I should have reached out to Joe directly when the numerous attempts failed via their support forum, tweets, tweet chat they hosted, email and other. However, it was also their loss they didn’t take the time to respond via email with a thoughtful response versus a canned answer.
Jason said something similar in regard to disconnecting for sake of clients being confused. For me this was the right answer. For others I understand and respect it may not be. For our clients it is. I don’t have time and they don’t have time to waste on it right now given all we have on our plate to evolve them as a social business.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and put good thought into it.
Spot on with my experience as well Pam. Thank you for such a well written post on what I have come to discover as one BIG HOAX!
Very insightful article and like Jane Howitt, much of what I want to say is ‘Wow’! Your research into this is powerful and thorough. I feel Klout shot themselves in the foot not giving anyone a ‘head up’ on their changes last month. I also believe a lot of the Klout hype is hype. My Klout score was going up as I engged more and more and I felt at first is was a realistic and attainable goal to want to get int he 70’s score. Once the changes were made, nothing I’ve done, or neglected to do, has changed my Klout score. As a matter of fact, I went on a 10 days trip to Europe last week and had very little engagement on any of my platforms. Not a single Klout point lost. What on earth ARE they measuring?
The whole privacy issue got me thinking, evaluating and will probably be the deciding factor whether I will keep or (try to) delete my current account. As a mother of four (three teenagers) I do not want to have anything to do with these kinds of practices.
Thank you for sharing your research and now I will do mine!
Dorien.
Pam, thanks for writing such an in-depth post. I too, have contacted Klout’s support team asking why my score continues to drop despite my level of true interaction, retweets, etc… and they gave me the same canned answer they gave you.
I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, let them iron the kinks out of their new system, but they do lose credibility and my respect when they don’t answer questions or the answers they give are weak at best.
I educate people new to social media so most of my activity is with those with Klout scores lower than mine. Am I going to jeopardize these relationships because Klout thinks I need to interact with people with higher Klout scores? Absolutely NOT.
Am I going to delete my Klout account? I haven’t given up on them yet… Each person needs to do what they feel is best.
All valid points Pam. I’ve found people in the SoMe world a bit fickle when it comes to some of these platforms. To a smaller degree, that same has happened with Empire Avenue. Measuring influence is very inexact science. The overwhelming majority take it way to seriously (even me at times). Klout involves a score, which impacts ones ego. So to no surprise there are a number of critics. Just the daily +K’s give me an arm to engage and meet new people. That’s worthy enough for me…We’ll see back on in 6 months…
Hi Pam, I very much appreciate the research and thought you put into this post, however I feel you have over-reacted. I agree that Klout has made some huge marketing mistakes, but I feel their service has merit and possibilities and therefore I am willing to live through some of the bumps in the road. I have often compared Klout to a Credit Score. None of us utilize our Credit Scores on a daily basis, but when we need credit, the scores are essential. As we move forward and social media continues to mature, marketers and brands will need to know who the influencers are and Klout is built for them, not for you and me. I only really care what my Klout score is if a brand contacts me for business someday because of my influence and (I hope) that Klout is successful and that I get that call someday. Is it guaranteed to happen? No. Do I feel anymore exposed on the web as a Klout participant than I did before Klout? Not really, so for me, I will continue to allow Klout to “measure” me and see where it leads.
I agree with you Dennis.
I think Klout has a lot of flaws, but I think it offers a lot of great opportunities for marketers. The concept is brilliant, and I’m sure as time goes on issues will find a way to themselves out.
But great post, Pam! It was very interesting to read your perspective.
Pam, great stuff. My journey to delete my Klout profile ended here http://www.jeffturner.info/why-i-deleted-my-klout-profile/ but began with some robot games http://www.jeffturner.info/game-klout/ and while my reasons were as varied as yours, in the end, “cause I wanted to” is the one I still like best as well. :)
Thanks for post., Do we have an alternative? Peerindex maybe?
Great post Pam. I’m glad you have the commitment to transparency and integrity to take Klout to task for their policies and actions. I too have ranted and deleted my account, but you explained my own decision far more completely and elegantly. I would also add that Klout has acted like a spoiled child in the marketplace, first capturing a huge market following, then saying “it’s my game, and I’ll play it any way I want.” Any good PR or marketing person would look at their actions and wonder what they were thinking when they decided to change the algorithm, then callously tell all of their members to accept their fate. I blame senior management for acting stupidly and irresponsibly. There have been many gaffes in social media and saas startups, but this one takes the cake. If Klout survives to become a respected entity like Twitter, I will be very surprised.
Wow, I think this is well thought out. To be honest, I’m horrified that they haven’t been pulling your facebook API, I know there have been times were some brands I work on have had great weeks with re-tweets, replies, and convos with big influencers, and I was confused that there was either no change or negative change, I did chalk it up to them working out the new algorithm, but I had no idea that the new algorithm was so ignorant. Thanks for pulling back the curtain a bit.
I appreciate the careful study and feedback you have given. The biggest agreements you and I have are about the extreme lag in time between the activity and the scoring, which is super obvious in my account, and the fact that they failed utterly to honor and thank and appease all those of us who played with it and K’d around, giving them exposure. I have not quit, and continue to give K’s, but I think they are going to loose this game to other players, many going for the same market right this minute.
I deleted my account a few weeks ago as well, with the main point being their assertion that there were certain people who were quality contacts and others that weren’t, and talking to too many people of low quality would reduce your score. I took great offense at that and figured it was up to me to decide who was quality and who wasn’t, and thus I bailed.
I’m deleting my account very soon. The website has so much potential, but I get mixed feelings every time I visit.
First of all, I had the same problem you did. I own a WordPress blog that has seen a rise in visitors over the past week of over 250%! What effect has this had on my Klout? None. The new Facebook page I created to associate with my blog went from 7 fans to 71 over the past week. Any positive change in Klout? Nope. In fact, my Klout score has decreased.
My real problem however comes from the fact that you can give “K+” to anyone, influencial or not. If they are the standard for influence, why do they let anyone add to someone’s Klout score with the K+?
Finally, the fact that there are sponsors who pay to be on Klout makes me very wary, especially because they are in beta. I understand, measuring influence is not easy, but get it right before you start calling yourself THE standard… because at the moment, Klout has a long way to go.
The only benefit I can see having a Klout profile is the free back link. Everytime I log in, I get some bogus reward that is really a free add for them.
Was hopeful they could actually provide some useful insights to our followers, but totally dissappointed in their results.
Here I’m totally sucked in by this thought evoking article and I didn’t even realize who the author was. Insomia at 3AM will do that to a human being. Then I get to the end and it’s Pam. Yeah! Great writeup Pam. Influence will never strictly be about characters on a computer screen. Where’s the fun in that?
As always love your work!
Jeff Funk