While Klout may be a good starting point for research, it doesn’t even scratch the surface on quantifying a person’s influence. And, Klout’s latest addition, Klout Perks, is even more problematic. Perks lets online influencers receive free or discounted deals on products directly through the Klout dashboard. While this seems like a good idea on paper (Hey, who doesn’t like a good freebie?), I’m going to argue that it’s destined to fail. Here’s 5 reasons why.
1. It Puts Too Much Weight On Klout’s Mysterious Influence Score.
The majority of these perks are based off the presumption that you have a certain Klout score or higher. The problem with saying that you need a Klout score of 60 hypothetically or higher is that it becomes a free-for-all to get freebies. Those folks, with a 60+ score, could range from tech enthusiasts to mommy bloggers and eco-friendly outdoorsman. And even if you tack on extra qualifications like you must be influential about three or four topics on Klout, chances are you still have a much bigger umbrella of people than the core you should be targeting. Most people will sign up for this freebie, but an even smaller number will remember what the product is and buy from the vendor later on. See how this could be troubling?
2. You Can’t Quantify Influence
The next troubling issue has plagued Klout from the get-go. That’s you simply can’t quantify influence on a 1-100 score. It just doesn’t work that well. This will be a major sticking point down the road when Klout Perks tries to appeal to more marketers.
3. Poor Targeting
Klout has also been investing more time trying to gauge the topics that their online influencers are influential about. While it’s gotten better, they still have a long way to go. For instance according to Klout, I’m influential about social media, public relations, blogging, fast food and airports. Now, I’d like to think they are currently batting a 60%. Now, I have no idea how they found that I was influential about fast food and airports other than I occasionally use the hashtag, #airportpeoplewatching. A fun, mindless way to pass time in the airport. If you haven’t tried it, you should. I’ve seen some amusing things in airports, including a mother holding her baby while cursing out a woman in a wheelchair. Talk about staying classy, but I digress. See my point. Targeting people based on Klout’s influential topics can be a sticky situation.
4. A Free-For-All For Lazy PR Pros
Klout Perks is probably the closest thing to maximizing laziness for PRos. They can register for a perk and giveaway a free trial or some other discount of their client’s product with the hope that people will magically flock to it. They will get this free trial, be so grateful about it and then they are going to magically be brand advocates for life. WRONG.
People in general will always love freebies. People will also always take advantage of freebies. But once the freebies are gone, they are going to forgot about your product unless you work really hard to win them over. That’s just not going to happen with continual Klout Perks deals, because people will continue to want bigger and better freebies which will either lead to two things: a.) the company going out of business and the PR team losing the account or b.) the “freebie-seeking customers” going elsewhere when you stop giving out Klout Perks.
5. Lastly, it will suffer a demise similar to Groupon.
Companies initially loved Groupon. They paid Groupon to send out this massive discount. Then, Groupon would send out this daily deal and thousands would buy it. Then, Groupon would take 25% of the revenue and the company would get the 25% that was left (since 50% was already discounted in the actual deal). The company was still happy of course since they got 1,000s of new customers until they realized all the customers were just in it for the great deal and most would never return.
I’m guessing similar issues will plague Klout Perks. Right now, it’s still a relatively new marketing platform. The companies that have hopped on board the Klout Perks bandwagon, such as AXE, Secret, Spotify, Red Bull and Subway, etc., are just beginning to experiment with the platform. They are testing it out and giving small deals to online influencers. Since it’s so new, they probably don’t have many metrics set out to gauge how it’s working or many expectations. Some of these perks, i.e. like the Spotify USA invites, have even had some success.
However as the platform matures, brands, especially the early adopter brands (mentioned above), are going to have more and more expectations and demand more targeted information from Klout. Unless the influence score algorithm and influential topics mature a lot, Klout will have a very hard time managing these new expectations.
Do you think Klout Perks will take off? Please leave your comments below in the comment section.
I think Klout perks is too small to take off… granted, I’ve been out of the SM scene for a few months so my assessment may be off. Influencers used to be a real thing… guy X or gal Y would get or learn something new and the information and personal experiences would be shared or disseminated over a backyard BBQ or over tea – true WOM marketing. It worked because the word came from someone you trusted and if things should go awry down the road, you know your friend would follow up with more updates to stop you from making the same mistakes.
With regards to Klout perks, I find the whole thing annoying and narcissistic. Alright, the current web is built on narcissism but still, I don’t get why marketers would care about this platform. Does it make me want to buy a sandwich or go buy a car when SM acquaintances are gloating about free stuff or a weekend test drive? No, it just makes me annoyed. SM/web celebrities aren’t real celebrities and as much as we may respect one another, I haven’t found a case where we’d actually want to be one another. The difference here is many people DO want to be like real celebrities (i.e. Kim Kardashian, Justin ____, and others) so what they buy or own does influence the general public. With geek celebrities, we respect each other for their contributions but I honestly could care less what you guys drive, own, or eat. Well, I may care about the food if it’s good and I haven’t tried it yet. =)
The last straw today regarding Klout was me having to scan past all the pointless Klout+ super powers BS in my Twitter stream while trying to read peoples’ 9/11 thoughts. It’s like a bad commercial that won’t end and doesn’t know when it’s being inappropriate. I honestly hope this whole Klout thing goes away. Cool people doesn’t run around gloating and trying to convince how cool they are and I don’t think people with real clout should be running around bragging about a pointless klout scores. In fact, I think people who know they have real influence probably never posted a single klout related tweet. If you want to have real clout, go do something of importance. If you want freebies, go clip coupons. Don’t rub your free yogurt in my face like this is 2nd grade lunch.
I completely agree with you, Wei! I think Klout’s biggest problem is that it’s inflating the power of online influence. WOM happens both online and offline. Klout is smart to pick up on the online aspects of this. However, the first people I’m going to turn to is my family and IRL friends when I’m going to make a big purchase. Depending on what it is, then I may or may not turn to Twitter and Facebook.
And your point about Klout Twitter spam is spot on. I could care less that guy X won a free Klout perk and gloats about it on Twitter. I may go to Klout Perks to see if I can get the freebie, if its good. But the chances of me going back to that vendor and buying that product after getting the freebie is slim unless they do something else to win me over and make me a brand advocate. That won’t happen with repeated Klout Perks. Also, I’ve actually seen quite a few people post their Klout scores on their twitter bio. That’s the ultimate douchebag act.
Jessica, thanks for a very provocative post! I think that you may very well be correct in your assertion that Klout could fail. I would argue a counterpoint that Klout or something(s) similar will be around for a long time. The reason is simply that social media is such an enigma to advertisers. Through a Klout “score”, Klout is qualifying connectors and incentivizing them to promote product. The mechanics of the score are irrelevant, because advertisers can measure the conversion with relative ease. Either Klout will be of value to advertisers or not. I thought their Spotify campaign really showed the power of Klout to build brand awareness. The other point I’d make is that companies don’t see enough value in social to commit the resources necessary to qualify segmented social media broadcasters, so outsourcing this function to Klout or a similar company will continue to make a lot of sense for advertisers.
Your reasoning has some valid points in the short term. A lot of marketers and advertisers don’t have a full grasp on how to measure social media. My gut instinct says most will smarten up in the next couple of years and start demanding better metrics. That’s when Klout will either need to smarten up or it will fail.
Another issue with Klout is the topics that it claims you are influencial on. I apparently am influencial on magic! I have never written anything about magic – so I don’t understand where it gathers its data.
How about? Klout made you magically influential about magic.
It’s even simpler why Klout will fail – it seems to rely on artificial viral marketing to spread itself. This is a crutch technique that irritates far more people than it helps. It spams its users twitter feeds with this “+k” crap that serves only to clog the stream. If it’s useful, then people will use it. If it’s not useful, people won’t use it. The twitter spam is unnecessary either way.
That’s a great point. The amount of spam generated from all the +K posts is enough to turn most, if not all, people off. Of course, some of the blame is on the Twitter users for opting in and not disabling their +Ks (fairly easy to do), but it’s still not a wise marketing move.
LOL. Just LOL.
Hey, just came across this post of yours and wondered if your stance has changed on the topic over the course of the year?
My blog post here argues the exact opposite: http://banyanbranch.com/social-blog/klout-perks-my-weekend-with-the-chevrolet-volt/
” People will also always take advantage of freebies. But once the freebies are gone, they are going to forgot about your product unless you work really hard to win them over ”
have to disagree, i usually end up buying their product if i like it.
One element that you are ignoring is that people who have high Klout scores are often real world connectors as well. They may not write up the products in their social media outlets, but their experience will most likely be shared word of mouth.
The system is still in Beta as well. Klout will be a huge goldmine for marketers.