Grabbing a Willing Audience: Ingenuity in Action!

Throughout our modern Internet history, there have been a few initiatives which have really stood out to me as audacious achievers. One of these is most definitely Klout.

Klout Employees Being “Beardheads.” It looks like a fun, successful place to work.

I stayed away from Klout for a long time as I didn’t see the value in it, plus frankly, the last thing I needed was another social media commitment. I’m trying to run a business, a home and a tricky health situation. I put priority on knowing when to draw the line.

Then one day, someone very kindly gave me some Klout. I was touched, I thought it was a lovely gesture. However, knowing I had never signed up for Klout, I also considered that to be downright suspicious. The Internet is not always a safe place to be… In the interests of knowing my potential enemy, I signed up. It seemed OK. I linked up my networks, got a score and it all seemed kind of nice. I started giving Klout to people and that gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling of giving back. It was goodwill in digital form.

Harmless enough, or as they say on the Cheezburger network, “seems legit.” But it worries me. Klout is a clever marketing technique. It is most certainly not a self-sacrificing users service. I am seeing far, far too many writers measuring their self-esteem on their Klout score and worrying about it. After all, it’s the “Standard for Influence.” That is disturbing. We’ve walked straight into their business plan and people are being negatively affected.

Writers need to be enjoying their creative journey; not bemoaning their perceived low score, or worrying about how to boost it higher. Considering it only measures half the networks I am attached to and doesn’t accurately reflect all activity on those, it’s pretty worthless to me anyway. I still occasionally log in and give some Klout to show my goodwill to people. That’s about it folks! I’ve dropped six points as I dared to work less hours and have some annual leave. I couldn’t care less. It doesn’t really matter.

Interestingly, the brand name Klout comes from the word “clout, noun: authoritative power, authority, controlling power, directing power, dominancy, dominion, eminence, force, hegemony, importance, influentiality, leverage, mastership, notability, power, power of impelling, predominancy, prestige, prominence, puissance, significance, weight.” (Source: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/clout)

Whoa! Now pulling in that word as your business name was a great move. Talk about building a strong image. That’s a master stroke in business and not easy to do.

May I challenge you to think about this a little further?

Klout’s Current Investors, July 30 2012

Don’t forget here that Klout came looking for me and registered details about me, without my consent. (See Red Flags below for their policy statements.) When you deal with mail harvesting robots, or unsolicited marketing on social media, you get annoyed and look for an off option.

So why do we consider Klout to be benevolent? Because it makes us feel good when we see words like “you influence” and our score rises. As friends contribute, it appears to be a sweetheart service. However, I can click on any of the people I influence, select anyone they influence (whether I know them or not), and give them Klout then brag about it on Twitter – which may also increase my Twitter following as I was nice to someone and they just “discovered me.” Awwww. How genuinely sweet is that? It’s not. It’s manipulation to get attention.

I think it’s great to give people positive feedback, especially through retweets, blog comments and shares. I have a large problem with doing it through a commercial service with investors, that gives you bragging rights and takes any of your information off the net without your permission. I don’t care if they call it public information or not, I didn’t give them a right to it and that, **to me personally, ranks the same as spam.

I have no issues with online enterprises making money to cover costs, but when it’s a business affecting people’s self worth (regardless of the fact it is our individual responsibility not to allow anyone to affect us), then I get somewhat riled up.

Don’t let it run your self esteem!

Klout Perks Could Be Considered Ads. It’s a great looking car, I wouldn’t mind one. If I was looking for a car, I’d check it out from this picture.

Red Flags

“Klout collects public data in order to accurately measure influence. Users can control the data available to Klout by changing the privacy settings on individual networks. Klout will never access your private data unless we have explicit permission.”

All my privacy settings are already set to keep intruders out, so how does this work? As far as I am concerned, they should never have known about me, let alone scored me. I came in with a score of 41 and I had never used their service or given any permissions. They had to collect that without my consent somehow.

“Allow Klout to see which pages you like on Facebook. This will allow Klout to offer you better and more relevant perks, communications, and experiences!” I have a high distinction in marketing. I have worked with small businesses on marketing strategies since the early nineties. To attract investors and get people in the door, this is a really good move. These guys are smart! I meant it when I used the word ingenuity. They have it.

Just in case I haven’t convinced you yet that you’re not a money making opportunity: the perk providers undoubtably pay and in the terms and conditions for all of us: “To the extent the Service or any portion thereof is made available for any fee, you may be required to select a payment plan and provide Klout information regarding your credit card or other payment instrument. You represent and warrant to Klout that such information is true and that you are authorized to use the payment instrument. We reserve the right to change Klout’s prices at any time.”

**This post is a personal opinion post which probably sounds self-righteous and downright snarky. It is solely my own, taken from my own personal experience, which I have the saved files to prove. It is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2012.

However a personal opinion is a right which United States and Australian constitutions and legalities allow me to have. It is based entirely on fact and is not libellous. All images came off their site on July 30, 2o12.

Klout is most welcome to contact me and show their lack of appreciation for my personal views, but I am not interested in perks, apologies or giving any company, any promo. I have no sponsored ads on this site. I have never been offered or accepted any form or product for comment or promotion. I work very hard on my own business, no one else’s… Of course I want you to buy my courses and books, but I won’t harvest your details without consent to do so. I try hard to ensure this stays a blog with integrity.

 

Filed under: Blogging, Creativity, Food For Thought, Personal Post, Writer's Recovery Community Post, Writing Tagged: author, blogging, business, failure, goals, goodwill, ingenuity, innovation, investor, Klout, marketing, motivation, privacy, self esteem, stress, success, Twitter, writer, writing