Recent changes in the algorithm used by Klout made a lot of users experience a drop in their Klout score, hence very angry. These users have painfully worked to get their score up for the last few years, though nobody knew what it really meant or how it was calculated. A lot of guess work happened to understand how it works and slowly some perks started showing up in addition to having a lot of followers on Twitter, which certainly helped users that are personal brand conscious.  Now that Klout made it clear that a Twitter user’s Klout will get penalized if they spend time engaging with people of lesser Klout and will benefit if they do otherwise, I wonder why anybody wants to spend time with people that have lesser Klout and in effect.In one sentence, Klout is destroying the whole purpose of Twitter or social networking, i.e., to find interesting people and engage with them for betterment of their personal, professional and business lives.

Don’t people matter irrespective of their Klout?

Absolutely. This is the realization people are getting, especially the ones who saw drop in their Klout score and care enough to worry about it. As the realization dawns, they look beyond Klout and going back to roots and figuring out why they are on Twitter in the first place. It is not to increase Klout, but to engage with users of similar interests, develop relationships, and ultimately do good for the society and to their business.

Focusing on influence and influencers is going to be driving exclusivity rather than inclusiveness that is expected on social networks. If you are a brand focusing on influencers may be a need, but cannot be the sole activity.  At some point, you have to focus on your brand advocates or champions.  When a customer walks into the store, even though he is not an influencer, he still likes to be treated like one. Why should it be different on social networks?

But, there is a need to prioritize what you are doing as a brand.

Let us face it. One of the biggest problems on social media marketing or being active on social networks is lack of enough time in the day to consume all the information and keep track of everything that’s going on.  Time is of essence especially at the stage where we are in, where the return on investment (ROI) on social marketing efforts is still evolving and requires efforts to identify and quantify the returns. As a social media marketer, you are also facing another key issue – i.e., justifying your job to your upper management on how well you are doing and whether you are doing better than your competition.  This is where you can use the Marketing 101 tactics of finding your brand champions and working with them closely, in addition to chasing influencers with Klout.