We have spoken about Klout in the past as a great resource to measure your influence in the social media world as well as to find and connect with social media thought leaders. Klout has recently added some new functionality to its website and essentially made it something of a social news reader. The new Klout will help you find social media thought leaders but will also give you an idea of the type of content they are sharing without you ever having to leave the Klout website.
Klout CEO Joe Fernandez had the following to say in an interview about the new site launch: “Sharing articles was a natural place for us to start, since curation is such a huge part of what most active social users do on a daily basis.” The Klout update looks to be aligned with the content push many other social websites are making right now: LinkedIn just recently acquired news aggregator site Pulse and Facebook also made news with the unveiling of its news reading service, Paper.
The goal of all of these websites seems to be to make them destinations for users even when they are not looking to connect socially. Now that Klout too has a social news reader it can help retain more users and increase their time spent on the site.
How Can Your Brand Make an Impact with Klout’s News Reader?
Klout’s Fernandez said that the addition of original content creation from its users will help to “produce a bigger impact from their audience.” This is good news for brands that create a lot of influential content (or want to) as Klout can give them an additional platform in which to establish an authoritative voice.
The same goes for individuals inside of brands who are social influencers (think Richard Branson). The individuals who represent the brands or the brands themselves can increase their Klout scores by constantly creating great content across numerous social media channels. The Klout news reader will automatically decide which topics will show up in the news feed and users or brands can leave it up to Klout to help push out content which will then help to drive more referral traffic to their websites.
At this time it is not yet known whether brands or Klout users will have any say in what content is presented on their pages but what we do know is that Klout is using specific signals to determine what shows up in the news feeds.
What Shows Up in My Klout News Feed?
In addition to showing what is trending within your company’s content, Klout will also use its algorithms to showcase other content it deems interesting or relevant. The following “flags” are what the new site currently uses to increase user engagement:
- On the rise: content that is on the verge of trending
- Crowd pleaser: content in which a user’s network will have significant interest
- Hidden gem: content that a large percentage of a user’s network has not yet seen
- Hot off the press: content that was recently published by a trusted source
Klout Bottom Line
Klout is making big moves with the news reader and is also adding a mobile element so that users can peruse content while on-the-go. While many people already use Klout as a way to find social media thought leaders it remains to be seen if the content element will drive more traffic to the site and more importantly if it will drive more traffic to yours.
