Twitter Analytics with Klout

The list of Twitter Analytics tools continues to grow. These third-party applications let you gauge your activity, followers, friends, and other parameters on the social networking site. I’ve discussed Twitterholic and Twitter Grader previously, but the most interesting ones are those that tell you what you want to hear. For me, that has to be Klout.

Register with Klout, allow it to access your Twitter account via OAth trusted login rather than giving it your password and within an hour or so (at busy times) it will email you when it has created a personal profile for your account. This is what it had to say about me, as sciencebase on Twitter. Apparently, I am a “Persona”:

You have built a personal brand around your identity. There is a good chance that you work in social media or marketing but you might even be famous in real life. Being a persona is not just about having a ton of followers, to make it to the top right corner you need to engage with your audience. Make no mistake about it though, when you talk people listen.

I especially like the bit about being famous in real life, hey maybe I am, but I doubt it very much. Rather than a Persona, I could have been a Connector, a Climber, or a Casual Twitter user. I do feel I have connector tendencies having brought together some totally unconnected people in my life who went on to make sweet music together, but I’m glad Klout didn’t tell me I am casual.

Meanwhile, Klout also lets you know who it thinks are your influences. It gave me a list of the usual suspects whom I could have revealed without even looking: octane, kwbridge, jennifer_p, lyndoman, and mattuk.

Klout is worth a look, as with most of these “analytics” tools, they are not really revealing very much about your true reach in the online world of social networking and social media, but they give you a hint, and are sometimes a lot of fun!