The influence misconception: Whose fault is it anyway?

I’ve been hard on Klout. Maybe too hard. But as a communications professional, I’m worried about our industry. And I think I have reason to be.

As my friend Gini Dietrich calls out in the title of her award-winning blog – Spin Sucks. It’s an issue PR pros and communicators have been dealing with for a long time. It’s shaped our reputation. But the issue goes much deeper than spin, IMO.

We have a credibility issue. A big one. And we’ve got to keep taking steps to fix it. Do you want to be seen as a communicator or a strategic counselor? Do you want to try getting executives attention by talking about impressions or business objectives? Do see yourself as a publicist or a relationship builder?

This is why I’ve had a problem with Klout. And it’s not just Klout. It’s any tool out there that tries to provide a quick fix when it comes to targeted relationship building – Technorati, Cision, etc. Word of mouth is the most trusted form of marketing and communications. Research backs it up. But word of mouth does not grow on trees. You can’t buy some word of mouth plants at the local nursery and plant them around your city. You can’t ask for some word of mouth seeds from the same guy who gave Jack his beanstalk beans.

But maybe I’ve been looking at this whole thing the wrong way. Sure, Klout markets itself as the standard for online influence, which bothers me because there is no such thing as universal influence. Plus Klout currently only measures Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And Klout Perks are absolutely an attempt to buy positive word of mouth from people the tools’ creators see as influential.

But this is not a marketing strategy unique to Klout. Look at the majority of consumer goods in our country or a sampling of online solutions providers and you’ll see white lie marketing happening all over the place. In fact, some would call it strategic marketing. And they would have a point. Klout is gaining steam fast and furious online and is doing a solid job of positioning itself as the standout company when it comes to measuring influence – the Foursquare of influence if we were to make an LBS comparison.

So I think I may start to ease up on Klout a bit. Not because I buy what they’re selling. But because I realize they have a right to sell it. We as communicators all have brains, right? We can all think for ourselves, can’t we? So let’s make sure we do that. Because really, the more and more I think about, lazy communicators are the real problem. Not Klout. Or Technorati. Or Cision.

Lazy communicators are the ones who try and convince executives that a large impressions number is bad ass and don’t bother to go any deeper. Lazy communicators are the ones who try to position Klout score as a rationale for identifying influencers and forget to explain why influencers are important to the brand in the first place.

Lazy communicators focus on generating big numbers just to generate big numbers, and fail to explore  the insights those numbers provide, the actions the business should consider taking as a result or the customer stories that lie within those numbers. That’s why so many executives have given communicatiors the polite head nod, smile and condescending pat on the back. Because we haven’t given them enough of a reason to take us more seriously.

But that’s not Klout’s fault. It’s a company trying to be innovative and market itself in a way that stands out to its customers. We, the potential customers, are at fault when we misuse and misrepresent the numbers the tool is providing. Because that’s what Klout is providing. A score. It’s a piece of a much larger puzzle we have to put together to research influencers for our clients. It’s not a holy grail of influence. There is no such thing. There never will be. And as an industry, we need to recognize tools like Klout for what they are, what they aren’t and work to educate each other on these issues.

I’m tired of blaming Klout. From now on, when I see or hear a misrepresentation of what it or other influence tools provide, I blame us. And I worry about us as communicators. We’ve got to do better.

Related posts: