To Klout or not to Klout?

Do you have Klout?

Should you?

Do you even know what Klout is?

Well according to the welcome page at http://klout.com/home, everyone has Klout. And that may pose a bit of a problem.

According to Memphis-based social media consultant Liz Jostes, Klout.com – that online arbiter of Internet influence - may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Jostes, who makes a living as a consultant for clients who want to expand their social media presence and boost marketing efforts, studies such sites as Klout as part of her daily routine.

And she shared some of her opinions and experiences with the attendees at today’s monthly installment of Social Expedition.

Among the complaints Jostes has with Klout is what she describes as the company’s practice of pushing the envelope regarding privacy issues and questionable algorithims that it uses to determine just how much online influence users actually have.

With regard to privacy, Jostes says that Klout regularly crosses the line of acceptability by including people in its list of influencers whether they’ve signed up for its site or not. Using information obtained from Facebook and Twitter, Klout compiles and calculates influencer status and assigns numbers from 1 to 100 indicating varying level of influence.

And as for that rating system, Jostes questions its validity. Signing on to Klout using two different Twitter accounts – one a highly active professional one and another a limited-access personal one – Jostes was amazed and disappointed to discover that the Klout rating generated by her little-used personal account was higher than the one for her professional Twitter account, which has attracted thousands of followers.

Go figure.

Except that Jostes couldn’t figure it out. So she deleted her Klout profiles.

And yet they remain. Despite her attempts to remove her profile from the site, she’s still being listed and being rated, apparently with a diminishing level of influence.

The connection between such ratings and entrepreneurs involved in startups or business owners hoping to grow their companies should be fairly obvious.

If you’re positioning your company as a leader - an influencer even - in a particular field, how do you manage and exploit such metrics as those offered by Klout? Should you even try?

Jostes offered thoughts on those questions and myriad others during her presentation, which Social Expedition founder Dave Barger promises will be posted on the group’s website. It’s a fascinating listen and I encourage you to check it out. There’s also information about the group itself and details about the next meeting in January.

For more information, visit http://www.socialexpedition.com/

And make plans to attend the group’s next meeting on Jan. 4. You’ll meet some interesting people and you might even learn a thing or two, whether you have Klout or not.