Influencing Your Social Network with Klout

Updated February 28, 2025

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Managing your social network has never been so complicated. It’s not just about having friends anymore. The harsh reality is that today people are expected to have online friends, post pictures with these online friends, and comment on their online friend’s posts, along with a multitude of other burdensome responsibilities within their social network. In essence, the idea behind Facebook and other media sites is that popularity is something that can be measured with numbers… number of “friends,” number of photos, you name it. In the US alone, 156,830,580 people have joined Facebook because of the lure of being part of a social network. In this enormous world, it seems as though everyone wants to be heard and be seen.

To survive the online social networking scene, many users use certain strategies in an attempt to gain a social edge. One of my friends only posts Facebook statuses around 6pm when most of her friends are online. I’ve known others who only post on weekends because more people are home. Ultimately, it is undeniably important to many people to be socially strategic. But there’s an easier, more effective way to do this. My favorite method: Klout.

Klout is a San Francisco-based company that provides social media analytics to measure a user’s influence across a social network. Klout scores range from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a higher assessment of the strength of one’s online influence. For instance, when I signed on to Facebook less during finals week, my score fell from 55 to 47. It’s not something that needs to be checked regularly, but if the number of “likes” you get on your statuses matters even in the slightest to you, you will find Klout intriguing. The company measures 3 types of social influence:

1. True Reach: the number of people you influence
2. Amplification: how much you influence people
3. Network: the influence of the people in your True Reach

These different measurements can give you a good sense of where you stand in your social network.

Want more social media analytic options? We reviewed several SoMe tools  just for you.