Web Wednesdays – each Wednesday we will feature a website that we’ve come across while in our process of searching for inspiration, the latest trends, or learning about anything and everything we can get our hands on that interests us.
So this week, i’m bringing you a relatively new social network of sorts(at least to me), voted one of the best websites of 2011 by Time Magazine, Klout.com. When you sign up as a member of Klout, it takes the data from your Facebook and Twitter and analyzes how much of an influence you have on those that follow you. How many people respond to your messages? Do your messages boost or create change? Once your network is analyzed, you are left with a Klout Score, the higher the score the bigger the perks. Klout Perks are products or experiences that you earn based on your influence. Some really nice perks that users have received are laptops and airline tickets. Now you may be wondering, why would they just give away stuff for free to people who have well established social networks? Well, companies that want to promote their products rely on the influencer to help spread the message of their product, do you like it and would you recommend it? But don’t worry, there is no obligation to talk about the products that you earn through Klout, nor do you even have to accept the product that you are offered.
The idea behind Klout is new and fresh and its popularity has grown exponentially in the past year. It currently has scored over 100 million people and that number continues to rise. It also seems to be extremely beneficial in today’s economy, helping to boost smaller business’ by word of mouth and what better way to do that than through social networking.