For Higher Ed Marketers, Klout Should Not Count
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you may have heard my disgust at the social media metric known as “Klout”. To be fair, I have nothing against Klout or the folks working there, but I do have a problem with institutions using it as a benchmark for social media success.
Fortunately there are many other folks in the higher ed community who share my skepticism over the metric. Earlier this summer I tweeted.
After receiving multiple responses from higher ed influencers (klout score not taken into account) we decided to start a petition within the higher ed community to make it official. You can sign and share it here.
Higher Ed Should Be Leading, Not Following in Social Media
In an age of new media, new shiny objects, and evolving social media metrics, it’s important higher education helps lead in an age of unprecedented communication, technology, and evolution/adoption.
While there are some folks in higher ed that “don’t get it”, many admissions counselors, marketers, community managers etc. understand why social media has so much potential in the education space. However, sometimes in the process of staying “up-to-date,” people can lose track of what truly matters and fall into a trap of what I call Social Media Madness.
This is why I believe higher ed should play the role of astute researcher, advisor, and critic on how effective social media engagement is. Since higher ed trains our future employees, team-mates, and government and business leaders, shouldn’t we be forcing ourselves (and our students) to think critically of these new metrics and avoid shallow distractions?
While Klout may evolve to be an important number in the future, it should not be looked to as a guide post for social media success today. Below are the three pillars of the anti-Klout petition. Please feel free to sign it and spread the word if you agree.
1. Not use Klout as a measurement tool for social media success
2. Focus on improving student and institutional outcomes with social media
3. Spread the word about the problems with Klout by sharing the petition.
Hat’s off to eCampusNews for sharing our research and vetting our Klout stance with other social media practitioners in higher ed. In this article Cornell College’s Media Relatoins Director Jamie Kelly describes Klout as the “Farmville of online metrics.”
Keep on keeping it real higher ed.
