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WTF Friday

WTF? Friday: Internet Privacy, Netflix Sharing and More!

By Communications, Media

On Charlottesville Right Now with Coy Barefoot, we talked about our changing relationship with privacy. A couple of recent developments inspired our discussion. One, the possible settlement agreement that Google may reach, in allegations that it,

gleaned “sensitive personal information,” including e-mail and text messages, passwords and Web-use history, from non-secured Wi-Fi networks,the Federal Communications Commission said last year.

We all love Street View, which the information was instrumental in building, but at what cost?

And this news from Netflix and Facebook: do you want your social network to know that your favorite movie is Hot Tub Time Machine? A new app allows users to share their movie viewing habits. Are you on board with that?

Listen to the podcast here.

WTF

WTF Happened to my Klout Score?

By Social Media

Lately, the Twitterverse has been FREAKING OUT over dropping Klout scores. It IS kind of a rude shock to check in on Klout and suddenly discover your score has dropped 50 points orWTF? so. What’s even more confusing to some is the sudden jump in scores (not that they’re complaining), but WTF does this all mean?

Klout has been up front about the changes, publishing a blog post about re-configuring scores for “a more accurate, transparent score,”. Klout CEO Joe Fernandez shared the thinking behind the changed algorithm in a post the previous week.

A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop. Some of our Scores here at the Klout HQ will drop (including mine) — our goal is accuracy above all else. We believe our users will be pleased with the improvements we’ve made.

This is a project that’s been under development for over three months, and, in many ways, over the three years since Klout started. We appreciate your trust and support and we can’t wait to hear what you think. We will let you know when this new model goes live next week and will continue to work to provide the deepest and most accurate insights into your influence possible.

I think the changes and the reasoning behind the are sound and that ultimately the score changes will even out and settle, providing a more accurate measure of influence for its users. The algorithm (in case this is all Greek to you) measures:

  • how many people you influence,
  • how much you influence them and
  • how influential they are.
    What do you think of Klout?

 

WTF? Friday: What is Klout, Anyway?

By Social Media

You may have clout, but do you have Klout?

A good tool for measuring influence and paying attention to your content and engagement is Klout.com. From the site:

“The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

• True Reach: How many people you influence

• Amplification: How much you influence them

• Network Impact: The influence of your network”

What I like about Klout is its comprehensiveness; the ability to connect multiple platforms to enhance an individual’s impact and the feedback it gives, allowing the user to learn about the kind of influence they are affecting, and the individuals who both influence the user and whom the user influences.

Using my own Klout profile as an example . . .

My score has been just below 70 for some time. I’m not complaining — 69 is a great Klout score since the total possible is 100. The only user I know that has a score of 100 is Justin Bieber. I don’t want to have anything in common with Justin Bieber, so there you go.

Klout tells me this:

  • I am a “curator” generating actions and discussions with nearly every message;
  • I influence more than 1,000 users with my content; this is my “true reach;”
  • I have a high percentage of content amplified; that is, my tweets and updates are shared often; and
  • I generate a high level of engagement from other influencers.

As a “curator” the site says this about my style of engagement:

You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network. You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about. Your hard work is very much appreciated.

Why thank you, Klout! You look very pretty today. Did you get a haircut?

I love Klout and the way it helps my clients’ businesses stay on message and measure the success of their social engagement. What’s YOUR Klout score?

WTF? Friday: Really Bad LinkedIn Profiles

By Communications

I don’t often address LinkedIn here on WTF? Friday, but some work today in the business network platform sent me to a profile that stopped me COLD.WTF?

Check this out:

Now, I’ve edited to protect the innocent idiot, but seriously, WTF? Did this woman employ her cat to complete her LinkedIn profile? Spelling, people. It’s not that hard. Note to Congressman ____________, check your employees’ LinkedIn profiles. Fire accordingly.

WTF? Friday: Four Ways Facebook and LinkedIn are Different

By Communications
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/TimFree/status/112157907902136322″]

My friend Tim fired off a cranky tweet this morning — and I agree with it wholeheartedly. Four ways Facebook and LinkedIn are different:

  1. LinkedIn is specifically for business relationships; for the most part, your friends on Facebook aren’t there to do business.
  2. A person’s LinkedIn profile is their resume. A person’s Facebook profile often tells you far less about the person professionally, and more about them personally.
  3. We connect to people on LinkedIn to improve our careers, to endorse others with whom we do business and to seek new opportunities. We connect with people on Facebook to find out if that guy we went to high school with is still hot. (Pro tip: he’s not.)
  4. Facebook calls connections “friends” which is amusing and mislabeled. I’m not really friends with most of the people I’ve “friended” on Facebook. LinkedIn connections, however, should be held to a higher standard; it will happen you will be the link between person A and person B and if person A asks you for a reference regarding person B, you don’t want to say, “I don’t really know them.”

So don’t go accepting all those offers to connect on LinkedIn willy-nilly, you dope. Make sure they’re people with whom you actually have a relationship you can reference.