Klout has been the reigning industry standard in the ever-sporadic social media sphere for 3 years already. It has become a standard for measuring social influence and reach. And just like any social analytics platform, Klout has rolled out changes last month in order to determine new categories in measuring social media influence. For web-savvy netizens, a person’s Klout score is a validation of how his social media accounts are reaching people and how they influence the users that they reach, but for customers who don’t really care about how many followers they have on Twitter or fans on Facebook, your Klout grade is a mere number. Why? Because most people don’t really have a firm idea about social influence measurement and scoring.

Like any social media tool, Klout thinks their recent changes will improve the service amidst the violent uproar by users who saw their scores plummet. It’s understood when people get upset whenever their numbers are reduced, but with Klout it’s a bit irrational. Last week, people were dousing Klout with a gamut of complaints regarding their scores when in fact they don’t really know what goes into their Klout score. How can you be seriously disappointed when your Klout score is reduced but you don’t even know how your score is really computed? The same goes with how Google doesn’t really divulge how it’s algorithm works. That is why SEO specialists keep trying to nail the search giant’s algorithm.

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Some of you might agree that a Klout score is simply feeding a person’s ego online. A mere validation that you belong to the “who’s who” in social media circles if your Klout score is high. No wonder Klout has been answering tons of queries and complaints regarding scores. So are the changes in Klout scoring crucial in reaching your target niche and turning users into potential customers?

If you have great content on your Tumblr blog which are being reblogged by other Tumblr bloggers but you don’t even share your posts on Twitter or Facebook, then you reach people through Tumblr alone even if you don’t have enough retweets or shares. Should your Klout score be as high with those who tweet their blog post instead? Or for instance, you tweet your blog post which is retweeted by 10 followers that have at least 20 followers each. On the other hand, you share the blog post on Facebook as well and is shared by 5 of your friends that has at least 4k friends to share it with. Can you easily pinpoint which social account is better in terms reaching potential customers whenever you share your content? The idea here is that not every social media account is really significant to one’s Klout score. If your reach isn’t as influential as your other social media account then a drop in your Klout score shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Social influence measurement is a bit tricky, it’s like acupuncture or astrology which doesn’t have any firm scientific claims to prove it’s validity and feasibility. You can’t turn people into instant customers if they are clueless about something. And it doesn’t really help educating people about something that keeps on changing. Even if it’s the most widely-used social analytics tool in the planet today.