Tag Archives: Klout

A Few Good Posts for a Friday

Entrepreneurship, Web/Tech, Weblogs, , , , , , , , , ,

These are some posts I recommended reading this week.

  • My absolute favorite this week was Mark Suster’s 9 Women Can’t Make a Baby in a Month, on TechCrunch. Mark’s Both Sides of the Table is a great blog, by the way. And this is the thought at the heart of that post:

    Over funding often produces bad behavior in early-stage companies. You hire people too fast, you over build your products, you try to force market adoption and you do PR blitzes before your product is really ready for prime time. And having too much money certainly raises board expectations that you will do big things quickly.

  • Inside Facebook explains how to convert your Facebook profile to a business page. Thanks to John Jantsch for pointing this one out. I’m a perfect example, I think; I’ve used Facebook only to support my writing and speaking, so it’s much more of a business page than a personal profile anyhow.
  • TechCrunch features Jonah Paretti, entrepreneur, teacher, and true expert on contagious media (in fact I think he coined that term).
  • I really like Denise O’Berry’s post Google Cracks the Code on What Makes a Good Manager. Here’s the quick summary:
    • Be a good coach
    • Empower your team and don’t micromanage
    • Express interest in team members’ success and personal well being
    • Don’t be a sissy: be productive and results-oriented
    • Be a good communicator and listen to your team
    • Help your employees with career development
    • Have a clear vision and strategy for the team
    • Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team
  • And finally, since today is April 1, otherwise known as April Fool’s Day, this one by my daughter Megan Berry of Klout.com: Measure Your Text Messaging Klout.

Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management

Business Planning, Social media, Technology, Twitter, Web/Tech, , , , ,

I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.) it’s about measuring online influence and I’m big on metrics as a key element of business planning; 2.) it’s a great example of a strong startup based on need — entrepreneur Joe Fernandez building something he wanted to use, and getting VC funding; and 3.) they released a new 2.0 version today (VentureBeat covered it … and there’s more detail on the Klout blog).

Metrics are the best possible drivers of good business planning processes and collaboration, because metrics can make feedback, the toughest part of management, almost automatic. Klout offers metrics on social media influence, so you can go beyond just counting followers or friends or whatever. True, I also like Klout because my daughter is marketing manager there. But I’ve been advocating this kind of social media metrics for a long time. Here for example is what I wrote about metrics just two days ago on Small Business Trends, which led  to a discussion of metrics and measurement and better ways to evaluate performance:

I’ve seen objective metrics, like sales, costs, expenses, calls, subscriptions, downloads, visits, page views, minutes per call, or unique visitors work pretty well, especially when they’re part of a regular planning process. I still remember how well the metrics worked in my first job, as an editor for United Press International, when they gave us scores for how many  newspapers used our stories instead of Associated Press.

So, with that in mind, here’s a (relatively) new facility to put numbers behind your social media efforts. Think about this as a tool for managing Twitter performance (if you don’t see the video, click here for the source site.)

http://blip.tv/play/AYHf9QwC

So the magic here is that Klout gives you a numeric score for your Twitter presence. I’m pleased. I’m a 45, which is 90th percentile. Sure Guy Kawasaki’s at 100, but my 45 beats a lot of people I know and respect. (What? Me competitive?).

So if you’re dealing with social media performance for a team, in business, maybe you can set goals for Klout scores and then follow up. Include the Klout score in plan review sessions.

What’s your score? What’s going to be your score goal for your management metrics?