What’s your Klout score? Don’t know what I’m talking about? Good. Don’t read on, just click away. Please. You’re at risk of selling your soul to the devil if you continue.
Oh, so you’re curious? You want to be drawn into a world of narcissistic, insecure attention seekers. It looks like you want to be a part of the icky, crass, vainglorious world that is contemporary culture today. So be it. Read on.
Your Klout score is your measure of social influence. It tallies up how many friends you have on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, counts how many times people contact you versus you contacting them, and how many people listen to what you have to say. Then it gives you a score out of 100. That’s right, young marketing executive, right now you can find out just how influential you really are. Your score is already out there for everyone to see. Justin Bieber has a perfect score of 100 – he’s the only one who does – and I’m somewhat lower, with a score of 47.
The reason why I – paradoxically – find Klout both repulsive and irresistible is that it makes a commodity out of me, and all those around me. I know exactly how influential I am. I know who I’m more influential than and who’s more influential than me. I can even work out what I’m worth. Kim Kardashian is paid around $25,000 per tweet and she has 11,000,000 followers. If I have 3,200 followers I can charge around $7.00 a tweet. As an aside, I offered my services on Twitter the other night (for $7.00 a pop) and earned $28. Not quite in the same ballpark as Ms Kardashian.
Now, if you think all this is cool, give yourself a slap. Klout will create more envy. Klout will create more greed. Klout will contribute to people comparing themselves with others. It will increase peoples’ desire to be famous and see their self worth tied up not in who they are, but rather in who they are seen to be. You’re measuring yourself, and unless you’re Justin Bieber you won't measure up.
I’ve never been a fan of saying the youth of today have got short attention spans – they don’t. They are just better at multi-tasking. Nor do I say the youth of today are marketing savvy – they are not. They are marketing illiterate. They live in a marketing super-saturated solution and are the least marketing-savvy generation to ever walk the planet. However, people do say that it is the narcissistic generation and I find plenty of evidence of that.
Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm believed there are six personality types and the first five are pro-adaptive and psychologically healthy. The last he called ‘the marketing character’, and it was the only ‘mal-adaptive’ character trait. He described the marketing character as those who experience themselves as commodities whose value and meaning are externally determined – they do whatever they can to sell themselves.
At least Klout is helping us put a dollar value on everyone’s head. It’s what we want, isn’t it?
Adam Ferrier
Founding Partner
Naked Communications
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.