In the early days of social media’s popularity, Klout was a pioneer in evaluating the impact of regular people and companies. Klout.com was started in 2008, and its main goal was to measure how much influence someone had on the internet. They did this with a special score they called the “Klout Score.”
Klout Score
Klout’s flagship offering was the Klout Score, a numerical representation of one’s social influence that ranged from 1 to 100.
This score considered a range of factors, including the size of an individual’s social network, content creation activities, and the level of engagement their content received.
For many, the Klout Score became more than just a metric; it evolved into a digital status symbol in the growing landscape of social media.
Fun Facts !!!
Klout supported over 15 social networks at its height, showing the tool’s commitment to analysing online influence properly.
Users who displayed influence on certain issues were often rewarded with “Klout Perks,” incentives provided by partner companies that showed the real-world effect of digital influence.
Notably, famous people such as former United States President Barack Obama have Klout ratings, with Obama’s reaching an amazing 99 in 2013.
Controversies of Klout
Accuracy and Relevance: Critics argued that the Klout Score was an oversimplification and often didn’t truly represent influence.
Privacy Concerns: Klout faced backlash for creating profiles of non-users based on public data.
When did Klout shut down?
Despite its early popularity and influence in social media, it eventually met its demise. In May 2018, Klout shut down its services in response to changing perceptions and criticism surrounding its scoring system.
FAQs
Lithium Technologies, which acquired Klout in 2014, shut it down in 2018.
It was a combination of attributes, including engagement, network size, and content quality.
Some did, especially to identify influencers for marketing campaigns.
Yes, platforms like PeerIndex and Kred also gauged social influence.
Beyond its scoring system, concerns about data privacy and the ethics of ranking individuals were often raised.
Conclusion
For a while, Klout represented the new age of digital influence.
Its rise and eventual fall underscore the volatile nature of online metrics and the evolving understanding of what truly constitutes “influence” in the digital domain.
Klout’s legacy serves as a lesson in the potential pitfalls and opportunities in attempting to quantify the vast, intricate landscape of social media influencers.
