Your Influence (and Klout Score) is Worth Money

As you may know I am not a big fan of Klout or the services like Klout. Simply because it in most cases gives people the wrong impression of influence. You can be an influencer with a low Klout score or you can seem to be an influencer because you may have a high Klout score while in fact nobody cares about your opinion.

Still it is inevitable that we have to deal with services like this, because it is how we try to get a grip on the whole ‘influence’ matter. Because influence and authority will matter. We’ve seen it with Search Plus Your World. The more influence you have the more visible you get to be, so you need to be as visibile as possible. And your influence is going to be worth money. Lots of it. And Klout is one of the first to actually show us that.

Last September Klout introduced “Klout Perks” in the US. Today they roll out that feature in the UK. From this day on people with a Klout score in the UK can take benefit and get discount and advantages based on their Klout scores.

What are Klout Perks?

You could compare Klout Perks to services like Groupon, only then based on your scores. You can get a deal for example on a ski-pass. All you have to do is register to Klout and ‘claim’ the discount.

The only difference with Groupon or Livingsocial is that the deals at the moment are a lot smaller and the connection with the Klout scores, you need to have a minimum Klout score to be eligible for the discount. And for the moment you have to live in the UK or the US.

The “Perks” at the moment are really small ones, from 10 to 50 pound discounts, so not deals the size of Groupon. But that can be a matter of time. Also your Klout score doesn’t have to be that high yet. In most cases a Klout score of 20 will do.

A Trend

So it doesn’t seem that ‘big’ yet. But it is a trend. It is Groupon combined with influence. Which suddenly makes your influence worth money. When the deals get bigger and the demands get bigger you will see major discounts for high influentials popping up.

And this will not just be Klout. It will be on different places. It will not surprise me if Google goes in the same direction. The higher your influence, the more it can actually make you.

That will be in different ways. Where Klout simply gives you a discount based on your score (similar services will do the same), a high influence will earn you privileges on other areas, maybe not direct but indirect. A high rated author who knows his articles will rank no matter where he posts them might be earning a lot of money selling not just his content, but also his name.

Come on in consultants

So the next step we will without a doubt see is consultants who will be trying to help you raise your influence. It is a matter of time that we will have not just SEO, SMO but also IPO: Influence Personality Optimization.

Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld is a speaker, trainer and online marketing strategist. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com. -- You can hire Bas to speak, train or consult. -- More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld