As you may know Klout just updated the way that it calculates your Klout score. Those of us that care about Internet Influence scores ( and there are a lot of people who a) Don’t know anything about Internet Influence scores and b) Don’t care about them ) were not looking forward to this day as all previous updates have resulted in a ( sometimes ) dramatic fall in Klout score.

Mashable describes the change in the way that Klout is now grading you here:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/14/klout-update/

The essentials are that “Klout now  puts more weight on who your followers are and how you’re engaging with them.  Klout also now takes into account more of your real-world influence.”

So, given the above and the fact that my Klout score rose from 62 to 70 I have to be pleased with this because it appears to be saying that I am connected with influential people and that we are communicating with one another which is actually what I think is happening. The ” real-world influence ” also appears to have been positive.

I also like the fact that Klout is offering  ”  a look back at your most influential tweets and posts over the past 90 days. ” This provides a summary of who engaged with me and why.

Klout is now saying that ” You’re not influential because of a number. You’re influential because of what you say ( and perhaps do ) .” This is a great way of measuring influence. Klout’s objective now is ( apparently )  “ to make you feel important, and make you feel listened to.”

If you are trying to get your Klout score up then Mashable offers a rundown of some of the factors that play into your ultimate score below:

Facebook
Mentions via tag from other people
Likes
Subscriber count
Posts on your wall
Overall friend count

Twitter
Retweets
Mentions
List memberships
Replies from you to your network
Number of followers

Google+
Comments on your content
+1s
Reshares of your content

LinkedIn
Your job title on LinkedIn
Your connections
Recommendations
Comments

Foursquare
Tips completed – the number of suggestions you’ve left at venues that people have actually completed.

+K
+K from your friends now also plays a role in your score. Previously it only influenced what categories you were thought to be influential in, not how influential you were in general.

Wikipedia
Page Importance
Inlinks to Outlinks ratio
Number of Inlinks

Apart from Wikipedia ( should I write something about myself 😉 I have a substantial presence on all of these networks ( and more ) and I always felt that this was not being taken into account. ( My Klout summary seemed to indicate that only my Twitter and Facebook networks were being analysed ).

This may all be a PR exercise but I have to declare myself  ” satisfied ” with the new measurement and also it seems to me to be taking the right factors into account.