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Scoring Social Success [Credit Union Management](Credit Union Management Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Is Klout's online algorithm useful enough for credit unions to consider creating a profile? Social media seems like such an intuitive marketing platform, but how do companies know they are using social media as effectively as they can? Created in 2008, Klout (www.klout.com) is a program that claims to score the online influence of a person or business between 1 and 100; the higher the score, the higher the online influence. In Theory Klout uses an algorithm to calculate a "score" of influence by tracking data from social networks as well as real-world data from such sites as Bing and Wikipedia (the more your company name is searched on these sites boosts its Klout score). Users can link their Klout accounts to a long list of social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Linkedln, WordPress, Foursquare, YouTube, Tumblr, Blogger, Last.fm, Flickr and Yammer. Klout's website describes the calculation as "the ratio of reactions you generate compared to the amount of content you share. For example, generating 100 retweets from 10 tweets will contribute more to your score than generating 100 retweets from 1,000 tweets." In this way, Klout is not necessarily about how many friends or followers a brand has, but about initiating action. For example, a company with 7,000 Twitter followers could have a lower score than a company with 1,700 Twitter followers if the second company's tweets initiate more online conversations and retweets. Klout's webpage describes influence as, "the ability to drive action. When you share something on social media or in real life and people respond, that's influence." Klout also values and measures engagement. Retweets from 100 different people will boost your score more than 100 retweets from the same person. This feature is helpful for businesses to track how much attention a certain campaign is receiving. With this encompassing view, it appears as though Klout could be a useful tool for several reasons: It keeps track of how many people are viewing, liking, sharing and retweeting your content; it bundles activity from all your social media accounts into one place; and it generates a list of your 'top moments,' such as which social media moves generated the most activity. In theory, Klout seems to make sense-it's a helpful tool. But there are mixed feelings from marketing experts and credit unions as to whether Klout is worth pursuing as part of a marketing strategy. Experts Weigh In Professional speaker and columnist Terry Brock, Achievement Systems Inc. (http:// terrybrock.com), is a huge proponent of the program. In 2013, he and co-author Gina Carr wrote Klout Matters for McGraw Hill Education, which was released this year. "I was a little skeptical going into the research-I'm a journalist, we're taught to do that-but when I got into it, I realized Klout is the umbrella that goes over everything you do in social media,'' Brock says. "It answers the question: What is most effective and what is a waste of time?" It's a program that quantitatively provides a way to approach social media. Brock likens the program to a FICA score; if you don't like your score, there are ways to improve it. The only striking difference is FICA is private, whereas Klout is public-any person with Internet access can access a Klout page and see how influential a person or business is. Brock notes this aspect of the program could be very beneficial to credit unions. Theoretically, a CU could visit its members' Klout pages to see which members are most influential in the social media world and use that information to target them specifically. If those influential people like, retweet or comment on a particular ad, campaign, or social media movement, the CU's message will be spread further in the social media world. "Klout is really about brand targeting and marketing in the right areas, and it shows us people who are influential in those areas," Brock comments. "It's very powerful, and some amazing things are possible with that information." Klout is also a great way to track competing companies, says Brock. A CU can visit competitors' Klout pages to see how influential they are or which marketing campaigns are working well for them. However, while Brock is a proponent of the program, he does note there are a few challenges he wishes could be changed. For one, Klout does not track YouTube views. A company can link its YouTube account to Klout so visitors can easily access its page, but number of views is not taken into account when determining your score. Unfortunately, neither are blog views. If someone is taking the time to read your blog, they are spending more time with your ideas than if they simply click retweet on Twitter, but it does not count for Klout's score. Brock notes he spoke with Joe Fernandez, CEO and co-creator of Klout, about these challenges and these are issues expected to be resolved in the future. Ron Shevlin, senior analyst for Aite Group LLC (www.aitegroup.com), Boston, has the opposite opinion of Klout as Brock. On his blog Snarketing 2.0 (http://tinyurl. com/kloutbigpicture), Shevlin argues against the noted point regarding using Klout to focus business attention on members with high Klout scores. He writes, "Unless your customer base is made up of just heavy social media users, then making decisions on what to do based on Klout scores may lead to sub-optimal decisions." He describes an example where a bank reserves its best parking spots for members with high Klout scores. Shevlin, as a theoretical customer of this bank, would pull his money out because of the decision to value one customer over another. Shevlin grants that it's necessary for marketers to pay attention to influential people. In an interview for this article he notes, "If I knew you had influence over 50 other consumers in your circle and if I impressed you enough that you would tell everyone else to do business with me, that's really important." At the same time, he thinks Klout is taking advantage of this importance. "Klout came along and said, 'we have a score telling you which people are most influential.' But the score is bogus." Shevlin explains that it does not fully represent a customer's influence. "Klout took a bunch of aspects they are able to measure quantitatively, like what people are posting, retweeting, and who they're interacting with, and created a hokey score." He believes the only real way to know someone's influence is to measure people's behavior. If a person acts on someone else's influence, that's important; a member can still be hugely influential if they don't tweet or use Facebook. So while Shevlin recognizes Klout is about promoting a company's online social media prowess, he is worried companies might interpret a member's online influence as their total influence, and give them special treatment offline as well. In Practice Some credit unions just don't see Klout as a necessary or particularly helpful social media tool. CUES member Fred Hagerman, SVP/chief marketing manager at $840 million/94,500-member Firstmark Credit Union (www.firstmarkcu.org), San Antonio, notes, "We have one person dedicated part time to social media so it's important for us to spend time where we think we'll get the biggest return." Hagerman went on to say his team considers Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to be the most effective social media platforms for them. Although Klout can be used as a resource for people to measure a company's online engagement and advertising campaigns, Hagerman notes, "[Klout] is just not a place where our members look to engage with us." However, Sue Swain, outreach coordinator at ll,500-member/$80 million SPE Federal Credit Union (www.spefcu.org), State College, Pa., says that Klout seems to have several features helpful to CUs. "The tracking feature and the articles are good, and Hidden Gems is a great addition for us to share with our members and followers," she says. The Hidden Gem feature of Klout shares content your followers haven't yet seen. This component, along with Klout's feature of sharing articles related to your area of expertise, Swain believes, has been beneficial to the credit union's followers. For example, SPE FCU shares articles or blogs related to relevant holidays. On Arbor Day the CU shared a blog post on how to create a financial family tree out of recycled materials. Swain says it is a fun way to connect with members. Swain adds SPE FCU was having difficulty engaging and reaching members and Klout seemed like a good way to ramp up its efforts. She notes the CU has profiles on at least six other social media pages because it seems different demographics gravitate toward different platforms. "We just try to post fun, as well as useful, information for our members," Swain says. She notes that although she's not yet positive how helpful Klout is in general for credit unions, and SPE FCU specifically, it is definitely a long-term technique the CU will be sticking with. Resources Read more articles about social media when you search at cues.org/ cumanagement/archive. Molly Hayman, a former CUES editorial intern, is a freelance writer based in Madison, Wis. (c) 2014 Credit Union Executives Society |