Social badges are not merit badges. Yet many brands treat social media as checking a box, rather than making a commitment. There’s a “Like grab” underway to accumulate as many friends, fans, followers, and likes as possible.
Social proof is not necessarily proof of quality. It’s easy for brands to feel encouraged as a campaign generates a few hundred or thousand new “likes”‘ but what do those likes really mean? There’s a campaign mindset to much of social media that prizes quantity over cultivating quality relationships.
Against this confusing backdrop, Joe Hernandez founded Klout to help provide a “standard of influence”. Klout scores social influencers in an effort to provide a quality lens to social media.
Klout founder Joe Hernandes is often asked how to achieve a high Klout score. His answer is a good rule of thumb for marketing in general:
“There are no shortcuts. You have to be yourself, be interesting, be engaging, and be consistent.”
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away two signed prints of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post. I’ll pick one comment from my blog and one comment from Facebook at 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)