Take a Deep Breath... You've Still Got Klout!

This afternoon, Klout - the standard for measuring social influence, made a change to their scoring algorithm.  The fallout from this decision has been interesting to watch.  One only needs to read a few of the comments on their blog... or the constant stream of angry Tweets pouring into TweetDeck to see that the world is obviously coming to an end. Here's a few of my favorites:

"More accurate scoring my ass. I get over 100 RTs a day and my amplification dropped from 74+ to 9. That is not accuracy, that is a mistake!"

"Looking at these comments, Klout just got a 'klout' in the teeth from these ridiculous changes. EXCELLENT time to jump ship to another similar service measuring influence in a consistent way. So long, thanks for nothing."

"I'm a social media professional.  This affects my business! I'm fuming with anger here."

And I could go on and on (but I won't).  Instead, I would rather that everyone take a step back for a moment... take a deep breath... and look at the big picture.

First of all, in Klout's defense, measuring people's social influence is no easy task as there are so many factors that go into determining a meaningful score.  I commend Klout for making these changes to their algorithm.  As the 'standard measurement for social influence' they bear the responsibility to their members and more importantly, the big brands they are attracting to  'get it right'.

Its important to remember that measuring social influence and more importantly professional reputation is not an exact science, especially when you consider ranking people on a scale from 1 to 100. One thing we (PROskore) spent a lot of energy on is looking at both sides of the coin. On one side, PROskore also takes into account your ever-changing social graph - albeit with a focus on the business aspects of your social graph (fans on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn... and yes, even your Klout score)... While on the other side of the coin are the non-variable aspects of who you really are and what you have accomplished in your life (e.g. your resume, your expertise, your circle of colleagues who recommend you, etc.).  It's at this intersection of social and the 'real world' where we believe the true score of a person becomes most accurate.

As Klout continues to update their algorithm - you will continue to see these major fluctuations because they are 100% dependent on variables (your ever-changing social graph). Meanwhile,  we'll continue to focus our efforts on those non-variable aspects of who you really are in an effort to find you a true score - a PROskore.