Digitized Thoughts

This post originally appeared on PR Breakfast Club on May 16th, 2012.

Last night’s #pr20chat was on the subject of integrating offline marketing tactics with those being used online. More to the point, ensuring “real world” tactics are still playing a large part in the strategy for your organization or client(s).

I’ve been wanting to write about Klout for a week or so now, and why I think Klout is a good starting point for a lot of things, but in the end doesn’t mean anything. This all started for me with the infamous Wired article a few weeks ago where an executive’s job interview essentially ended after his Klout score was deemed too low. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, posts were written about how much Klout sucks and how it is making those in the PR and marketing industries lazy.

It seems there’s only two sides to be had. Either Klout is the savior we’ve all been waiting for in measuring influence or it’s a meaningless game. The truth is that it’s somewhere in between. Online influence is an important topic. Who is talking about your brand and shaping opinions about it is VERY important. That doesn’t mean that offline influence has taken a back seat and don’t mean anything though.

Speaking at conferences, writing a book, teaching a college class, client referrals, none of these are measured on Klout. Does that make them meaningless? Certainly not. Klout is pioneering a segment of PR and marketing that is critical as the digital realm becomes more important. This isn’t something that is going to be hashed out overnight, or even in the span of a few years.

That picture you see is my Klout score. It was at a 62 a few weeks ago, but has dipped as my job and personal life have demanded more attention. As I’ve spent time on several major projects, enjoying my wife’s pregnancy, searching for a new house, and the Game of Thrones series (I’m reading the books first), my time spent in the social media sphere has diminished. I have a hard time believing that I’m not influencing the world around me, and yes. I know exactly how arrogant that sounds.

Influence doesn’t mean everyone around me bends to my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It means that others around me think I’m valuable in some way. Klout is heading in the right direction. Just don’t think it’s a non-stop flight to measurement paradise.

This post originally appeared on PR Breakfast Club on March 22nd, 2012.

I struggle with ROI in the social sphere, as I’ve talked about before. Google has taken a huge step forward this week in measuring the ROI of social media, as it announced the first concrete effort at valuing efforts in this arena. The three main reasons Google made this change (from the Analytics blog):

• “Identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions
• Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs

I’ll let you read through the post itself to familiarize yourself. Never before has anyone tried to tie real, tangible, financial results to likes, follows, comments, posts, and so on and so forth. We know the value of social media. It’s networking, listening, identifying new customers, etc. Selling it to the C-Suite can be difficult as the bottom line is the only number they are concerned about. This provides a tool that provides realistic numbers as to conversions, and where those conversions are coming from.

This is not a be-all-end-all tool, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.

This post originally appeared on Waxing Unlyrical on July 19th, 2012.

I’ll admit that it’s fun to bash Klout. They are on the front lines of the Wild West of determining influence, and who is doing that influencing, online.

Posts have been written ad nauseam (including on this blog, though they’re not the nauseating kind) on the plusses and minuses of Klout’s service, but I think I’ve finally nailed down what bothers me about the service (which I’m still a member of and will continue to use).

I have the belief that, despite what Klout says, it ties a large part of how “influential” you are directly to how much you tweet.

What’s your proof, LaCasse?

Glad you asked.

See that picture to the right (up there, no… there, that’s it)? That’s my Klout score over the past several weeks.

I’ve been busy this summer with a large project at work, moving into a new house, and preparing for the birth of our first child (due August 20th, and that date may or may not be circled in red marker with glitter all around it.), and you know, just enjoying summer with friends and family.

Because of that, my score has dropped from the ballpark of 62 this spring to 56. I’ve been tweeting less.

To put my suspicions to the test, I spent a few days last week tweeting incessantly and then going quiet. You can see in the picture above the spikes of when I was tweeting.

Here’s the question: am I less influential than I was in March? Do my ideas and thoughts matter less? Are they less valuable to my audience simply because I’m not tweeting as much?

I don’t think so. And here’s proof: although I don’t believe the number of people who follow me on Twitter to be incredibly important, that number has continued to steadily rise during the same time my Klout score has dropped.

I have to believe that if I was truly less influential than I was in March, my follower number would have dropped at a similar pace. Are there peaks and valleys to that follower growth? Of course. Generally speaking, that number has inclined while my Klout score has declined over the same period.

This is the main reason I just can’t take Klout incredibly seriously. I think it can be a valuable service… but for that to be the case, its algorithm must be tied more to content than frequency. Clearly, that isn’t the case right now and I think that’s a shame.

I realize Klout is relatively young and has a long way to go to mature as it fine-tunes its product. For the time being, it remains a game as far as I’m concerned, and not one I can advise my clients to pay any real attention to.