Klout is a social media influence rating system that is mostly taken with a grain of salt. You probably don’t care much about it until you win something. I received my first Klout perk from Red Bull, in the form of a magazine subscription to the Red Bulletin, which highlights actions sports and adventure photography. While I wouldn’t classify myself as Red Bull’s target audience I can appreciate free, and pretty cool, stuff.
How it works: Klout takes all of your social media data from your Instagram account to your Twitter page and rates you according to your influence, or how people interact with you on certain topics. Ever tweet about a bad experience on a flight? Hopefully, you got a response from the airline. If you have a higher Klout score you definitely got a response because that airline knows you have more potential to trash talk them to your network. Those tweets that come up on the TV screen while you watch The Voice are probably chosen because of Klout scores too. Hotels will even use Klout scores to decide when to upgrade guests to a better room.
How does this matter to you as a travel buff and adventure lover? Well, if you’re active on social media sign up for a Klout account here. With genuine social media content on whatever topics you are passionate about you’ll easily see your Klout score creep up. While the perks aren’t guaranteed it doesn’t hurt to let yourself be eligible to get free stuff and give more reasons for a brand to be extra helpful.
Three Cool Klout Perks For Travelers
- In 2010 the first perk was awarded when Klout partnered with Virgin America to give roundtrip flights to 120 Twitter influencers. Seriously cool surprise for those folks in Toronto who won the free trip to San Francisco or Los Angeles in honor of the new flight route.
- American Airlines used Klout score to give free 1-day passes to the Admirals Club to travelers regardless if they were flying with the airline or not.
- Tech company, AMD gave away free trips to the Austin City Limits festival. I would have tweeted, blogged and snail mailed about this perk if I got it.
What do you think about brands being extra nice on social media to people with higher Klout scores? I’d love to hear your take on Klout in the comments below.
Happy travels,
@laurylkitson