Gilt.com recently unveiled a special promotion that awards percentage-based discounts depending on the customer’s Klout score. Klout is a service that measures your influence in various social media channels using a formula that takes into account several factors. The question is, does Klout provide an accurate enough measurement to make it worth it for brands to provide these kinds of discounts?
Gilt.com recently unveiled a special promotion that awards percentage-based discounts depending on the customer’s Klout score. Klout is a service that measures your influence in various social media channels using a formula that takes into account several factors. The question is, does Klout provide an accurate enough measurement to make it worth it for brands to provide these kinds of discounts?
My personal Klout score is a 52. Based on this I’d be able to get 60% off in Gilt.com’s latest Klout-based promotion. This is a great deal that I’m definitely considering taking advantage of, but I don’t think it is worth it from Gilt.com’s perspective. The reason for giving me this discount is they believe I’ll take advantage of it and then use my social media “Klout” to tell all of my friends about the promotion.
Even though I have a Klout score over 50 I most likely wouldn’t drive any of my friends to take advantage of the deal just by posting about it. My Klout score is driven up because I post funny pictures and videos or because I’m posting about sports. This doesn’t mean my friends view me as an opinion leader and are willing to do what I say or shop where I tell them to shop. Gilt.com is also making a big assumption by thinking I will post about the sale in the first place. If I were to take advantage of the sale I most likely would not make a Facebook status or compose a tweet about the sale.
Is Klout a good way to measure social media influence? I think it’s a good start, but it is still very far from being a science. Some people can get a large Klout from posting viral videos, while other users can generate the same Klout score by being informative and being a thought leader. When Klout is able to easily distinguish between the two, sales such as Gilt.com’s may become more beneficial to the brand.
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