Why Klout and Social Influence Really Matter
Klout.com is a social influence measurement tool.
What’s your Klout score? It’s a question that you hear more often, particularly if you’re in the agency world.
So what is Klout and why is it important? That’s the more important question!
First off, if you haven’t tried it yet, go to Klout.com. If you’re signed into Twitter, it will ask you to connect your two accounts. Twitter has a pretty good application programming interface (API), so you can link two different services and share data. It’s pretty easy.
At first, Klout will probably give you a low score because it does not know how you interact with other Twitter users. But in time, it will give you some indication of your “influence.” You can read about how Klout scores influence, but suffice to say, it attempts to measure how many people repeat (or retweet!) what you say. It’s a modern, online version of how cool you are among your peers.
The mechanics of Klout aren’t as important as the concept behind social validation. So what is social validation and why should you care? Glad you asked! Read more
Mobile Video, NetFlix, and Mass Transit
Apple iPad
As I was riding the bus to work this week, I observed at least two people streaming Netflix to iPads.
The lower-end iPads include WiFi, but the upgraded models offer 3G wireless service. That makes it easy to stream Netflix wherever you are. Like, for instance, the bus.
This may seem like a minor point, but for content creators and content strategists, it is a significant development worth considering. For example, as you develop your content strategy, you’re probably thinking primarily about the website and mobile experience. This means a robust website that scales appropriately for mobile users.
If you create transmedia assets, you may also be thinking about familiar channels like YouTube and Vimeo for video. Maybe Slideshare for presentations. Perhaps an eBook on Amazon
Have you considered the bus? I mean, you know that mobile users are accessing your website on mobile device, and they may be on a bus. But when you think about long-form streaming video, you probably aren’t thinking about an iPad 2 streaming video on a bus. Read more
Use WordPress to Design a Website
WordPress logo
I’ve been developing content and building websites for a long, long time now. In the beginning, we did almost always from scratch. Occasionally, I used a template, but often it was just sitting at the keyboard grinding out a design and some code.
The past three or four sites, however, have all been developed on WordPress. Instead of worrying about HTML, CSS, Javascript, or divs, I get to focus on the content.
Initially, I only used WordPress as a blogging platform with the main body as the new content area. It was the standard blog structure where the newest post appeared on top, pushing the older posts down.
But now I’ve started to discover new ways to control WordPress to make it look like a regular website. So instead of posting a standard blog post, I am building a nice homepage with functional interior pages. In most cases, it still looks like a blog platform, which is fine by me. In most of these newer sites, I’m looking for a homegrown feel that highlights the content, not the snazzy design. Read more
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