I’ve actually thought a lot about Klout and social media influence in general (as an aside, Klout was really great about responding to one of my skeptical blog posts about their platform).

My take:

All numbers worth looking at are dynamic; they fluctuate.

I am slightly confused by your overall message, however. I agree 100% that consumers should “make sure [they] know how claims are made”, but why do you then include “Trust Your Brand” ? It seems that skepticism and trust are opposite sentiments.

Either way, great post–I’m probably just nitpicking or misunderstanding what you mean.

Cheers.

Anyone in social media who says that number of followers is what gives value has missed the entire point. The tools that support narcissistic tendencies such as Klout, confuse the real issue.

A large audience isn’t nearly as important as engagement. At some level the larger your following, the less you can engage. Frankly, I had more fun with 50 followers on Facebook that I could actually engage than with a few thousand.

As far as Franchises go, I follow who I follow because at one point of another they engaged me or gave information of value, not because they had a good Klout score.

In my particular market place the company that keeps telling me how much online engagement they have, also carries the record for the highest percentage of agents getting out of the business. Not the best testimony for the importance of online engagement…

It’s more important to see what you’ve done with your audience (and who they are) than to simply say you have one.