Is Klout a Good Judge of Your Social Media Influence?
Have you used Klout? Can it really tell you how influential people are online? Can it be gamed? Read my review and decide for yourself.
What Is Klout?
Klout calls itself the “measurement for your overall online influence,” but what are they really trying to do? To understand Klout’s goal, you have to understand influence itself and the difficulty in measuring social media ROI. In the beginning, social media was measured in followers and fans, and for a time, life was good.
But with companies joining social media sites by the tens of thousands, everyone got followed and eventually tricks, software and spam accounts ran wild. Newcomers were able to create large ‘followings’ and social media service clients couldn’t tell who was legitimate, and who had purchased a great ‘friend adder’ software program.
If we can’t count on raw numbers to tell us who’s popular online, then what can we do? Enter Klout. 
A Simple Way to Calculate Social Media Return on Investment
Social media return on investment (ROI) is simply a measurement of efficiency. It’s a lot of things to a lot of people: “return on inactivity,” “return on innovation” and “return on engagement.”
However, in a stricter sense, social media ROI is defined as a measure of the efficiency of a social media marketing campaign. This definition might sound complicated, but in reality, it’s quite simple.
6 Social Media Success Metrics You Need to Track
People who say social media isn’t measurable aren’t looking very hard.
The truth is there are dozens of viable metrics you can use to gauge the success of your social media efforts. The challenge isn’t measurability; it’s knowing which measures are meaningful.
Here are the 6 undervalued social media success metrics you should be tracking:
#1: Daily Story Feedback
Instead of just counting the number of Facebook “likes” you accrue, which signifies nothing more than digital bumper-stickering, track how often your fans click “like” and comment on the status updates you post.
5 Social Media Mistakes That Hurt Your Sales
Is social media NOT working for your company? Have you tried to show the return on investment (ROI) and it’s still negative?
If you’ve been using social media for a while and you’re still waiting for it to deliver positive revenue, here are some tips you can employ when your social media strategies are struggling to produce.
When you start any kind of social media activity, the ROI will probably be negative. Building revenue from social media activities takes time because you have to develop trust with your audience first.
8 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Do you think social media measurement is only about return on investment (ROI)?
Are you struggling to find measurements that are meaningful to your organization? Do you feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack of metrics?
Here are 8 useful metrics that you may not be measuring, but should be.
#1: Conversion Rates
Everyone wants to measure the volume of leads generated to get to the bottom-line ROI of social media efforts. But don’t forget about the value of the conversion rate! While the volume may not be there yet, the propensity to convert may be staring you right in the face.
How Big Brands Employ Social Media Marketing
I recently interviewed Andy Sernovitz, founder of the Social Media Business Council, an organization that includes many of the world’s largest brands such as Cisco, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble and Wells Fargo, just to mention a few.
Andy is also author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing and founder of GasPedal, a group that advises big brands such as TiVo, Dell, Sprint and Kimberly-Clark.
During this interview, you’ll gain insight into how large corporations are employing social media and you’ll also gain Andy’s insight into word-of-mouth marketing.
How to Measure Social Media Return on Investment for the Complex Sale
Are you trying to figure out how social media is impacting your bottom line? Are you already measuring but not seeing the results you had hoped for?
One of the reasons measuring the return on investment (ROI) of social media has sparked so many discussions is because it’s not easy. The main barrier to end-to-end measurement is the lack of a true social customer relationship management (CRM) solution.
