K-k-k-klout!
With Spring 12 Social Contacts and Accounts will be enhanced by two new sources: YouTube, which is quite understandable after events like “United Breaks Guitars”, a viral video by singer David Carroll whose guitar was broken during a United Airlines flight from Halifax to Chicago. This video reached 11 million viewers on YouTube, and caused United a serious PR problem.
The most surprising extension is the introduction of a social reputation and influence rating service called Klout. The system is still a mystery to many, which is apparent as many people only have a passive (automatically generated) Klout profile, with no active connections to their social network profiles. Despite this, Klout is growing fast and may well become a key social indicator.
Why?
- Facebook. Klout recently started counting your Facebook activity which meant a massive spike in influence for many profiles.
- Google+. Again, Klout counts your activity and shares (+1) on Google+.
- Improved algorithm? Yes Klout did something with the algorithm (finally) and now it really starts to count results, most importantly in relevant topics.
- Improved performance. It finally loads much faster despite more and more people linking their profiles, not just on Google+ or Facebook, but also LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc.
- Importance. Last but not least, Klout score start to be really important and more visible with Red numbers displayed on social media tools. Within Salesforce.com you can find them not just for social contacts, but also inside Radian 6.
How Klout will change Salesforce?
It is very straight forward. Klout integration will be generally available in Spring 12, effectively bringing a 3rd party “rating” to your social contacts. For Sales Cloud and Service Cloud it means new way how to look at people you speaking too. You may determine faster how influential a person really is, and even in which topics.
Imagine you are a Customer Care Manager for large brand and you can now look at independent profile “ratings” of people your Reps are speaking to. This gives you a better understanding of your risk. Yes, I said risk! Klout may work for your customer services like ratings for banks. It gives you a rating of your assets (your customers and prospects), and it gives an additional “early warning” how influential person really is.
Do you remember Marc Benioff’s favourite Cloudforce story on how the hotels had no idea who he was? Well, if they could see his Klout score of 72 they might be more careful – considering how influential he is. Klout is about influence. Therefore if your score is very high, you might become an angel endorsing business and its services, or a nightmare with a brand reputation (like David Carroll has become for United Airlines).
And not just that…
In Spring 12 Klout will also be enhancing Accounts, Person Accounts and Leads! Showing you how influential they are in social media.
Therefore Klout integration with Salesforce together with new Marketing Cloud powered by Radian 6 (both available GA Spring 12), will convert Salesforce into the ultimate tool for 21st century digital marketing. Which in an era of more than a billion people using social media tools daily, will make huge difference!
