Klout, the site that gave us our social media Klout scores, is shutting down on May 25, 2018. This is the same day that the GDPR is going into effect, so I’m assuming that it has something to do with GDPR. If you don’t know what GDPR is, and why it’s important, then you should read my What is GDPR post.
At the height of Klout’s reign in social media, social media influencers, with a high enough Klout score, could get rewarded by advertisers. These were called Klout Perks, and you could get anything from dog food to free movie passes to books and access to concerts. Klout Perks was shut down in 2015.
According to Klout, my Klout score is currently 66, and at the height I think I was somewhere around 74 or so.
The social media community, and digital marketing in general, needs some sort of measurement tool in order to figure out who the influencers are and who are “fake” influencers. Klout did a fairly decent job of this, until their system began to be gamed–and it didn’t make sense anymore to follow Klout scores anymore. I’m sure there will be another Klout-like scoring system in the future, we desperately need something like it.