12 Most Influential Perks for People with Low Klout Scores

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Klout.com predicts the ability of an individual (or a bot) to influence the public’s purchase decisions, attitudes and thinking by measuring the number of people you engage online, how influential they are and the number of times those people engage with your social content. It comprehends the unscientific nature of human influence — something most statisticians and philosophers have been struggling with for a century — and distilled it down to single number: the Klout score (a rank from 1 — 100).

It expertly uses gamification techniques to fuel our social media addiction and rewards those with perceived influence in particular categories with “Perks”: gifts and incentives furnished by sponsor companies such as umbrellas, wine, bags of chips, books, movie ticket or maybe — if you’re very lucky — a Sharpie. The understanding being that the recipients of these gifts will “influence” others to purchase their products and services.

And so people dedicate countless hours each day building lists of influential followers (ignoring those who are not), re-crafting and re-targeting messages till they get responses. Some use software tools to tell them who to follow, who to tweet and at what time of day to do so in order to become influential and receive these great Perks.

But what about the hundreds of thousands of people with low Klout scores? Or the millions around the world that don’t engage actively on social networking sites to have a score? You know… all those people that don’t spend their lives in front of a computer? Surely this is an untapped market? Well, I think it is and so I’m taking the initiative of creating and distributing — free of charge — 12 Perks for those people with low — or no — Klout scores (you’re welcome!).

1. Earn a living

With all that free time, you’ll enjoy spending more time performing your job, which will surely result in a promotion. You’re welcome.

2. Weight loss

With your free, non-computer time you may go work on your garden, exercise, clean the house, play ball with your kids… all of which will aid in losing the weight you’ve packed on from spending 16 hours a day at the computer. You’re welcome.

3. Read a book

If you once had a high Klout score and earned a new book Perk, you’ll now have the time away from your computer to read it and expand your knowledge and culture. You’re welcome.

4. 10 more years of life

You’re authorized to sleep in and go to bed earlier since you don’t need the extra time online to engage a larger audience across time zones. That’s equivalent to at least another 10 years added to your life! You’re welcome.

5. Learn another language

You’ll get to engage tens of thousands of additional people now that you have the time to learn another language! Talk about networking?! You’re welcome.

6. Regain your youth

The extra sleep you’ve earned will also aid your youthful appearance and save thousands on beauty supplies that are needed to remove the bags under your eyes created from countless hours tweeting. You’re welcome.

7. Smiles

Removing the stress of following the ever changing Klout algorithms and strategizing how to game the system to increase your score will free you to enjoy life and laugh a little. Smile lines are better “achievements” than Klout badges anyway. You’re welcome.

8. Reconnect with your spouse

You’ve earned the wisdom to understand the value of your spouse over the computer and social “friends”. Enjoy the time. You’re welcome.

9. Go on a date

Remember dating? It’s when you actually engage with people face to face to develop real love connections. Congratulations! (Tip: don’t use Groupon coupons on the first date). You’re welcome.

10. Improve the world

You’ve earned the time to volunteer with a local school or charity, clean up a local park or forest, or become a Big Brother or Big Sister. You’ve just improved the world. Thank you.

11. Have real influence with your kids

Your kids absorb influence from their parents. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Your free time can now be spent influencing them. You’re welcome.

12. Take a vacation

You don’t have to worry about your Klout score dropping while on vacation (due to lack of tweeting) so why not take the vacation? You’re welcome.

I’m sorry that none of these equal the value of a Sharpie pen but I trust they are valuable consultation Perks? Oh, and there’s no gamification involved in earning these Perks. You earn them without actually having to doing anything. You’re welcome.

Featured image courtesy of H. Michael Karshis licensed via Creative Commons.

Sam Fiorella

http://www.senseiwisdom.com/

Sam Fiorella is a globetrotting interactive marketing strategist who has earned his stripes over the past 20 years in senior management roles with corporate sales &marketing teams as well as consulting for more than 30 marketing agencies. Sam’s experience with over 1600 Interactive projects during the past 15 years spans the government, finance & insurance, manufacturing, national retail and travel/tourism sectors. Currently, Sam is the Chief Strategy Sensei at Sensei Marketing, where he is charged with strategic campaign guidance and marketing technology development that power the Sensei Customer Lifecycle Methodology. Sam is a respected blogger and popular keynote speaker on marketing, branding and social media communications having presented at more than 200 conferences in the past 2 years. Follow Sam on Twitter or Connect with him on LinkedIn.