PubCon: Kristopher Jones on Increasing Klout Score and Social Presence

Kristopher Jones, the bestselling author of SEO Visual Blueprint and the founder of KBJ Capital, spoke at PubCon today on the topic of social media signals.  The majority of his presentation focused on his belief that a strong social media presence and authority will impact search rankings and may become more important than a site’s backlink profile in the near future.

During the presentation, Jones spoke extensively about Klout and he expressed a belief that this score may become an important metric, similar to PageRank, in the near future. Klout score, which measures the number of people you influence (True Reach), how much you influence them (Amplification), and the network impact (Network), is a good measure of how a brand or person interacts with their following. Ultimately, what Klout does is measure a business’/individual’s social media influence. Jones stated that he believes that the “Klout” score may end up being more important than your link profile and that there is a highly likelihood of Google acquiring Klout at some point.

5 Ways to Increase Your Klout Score

1. Be real and authentic
2. Get influential Tweeters/Facebookers to share content (links)
3. Engage strategically with influencers with high Klout scores and share interesting content
4. Prune your followers/friends
5. Focus on your niche

With a strong social presence becoming increasingly important to search rankings and organic seo, simply having a Facebook and Twitter account is not enough. Instead, businesses must use social media on a regular basis in a ways that engages users in a high-quality and interactive manner. It is this social engagement and influence on the community that may determine rankings in the near future.

Actionable Tips to Increase Social Impact:

1. Integrate your FB and Twitter feeds
2. Follow people actively in your field by leveraging Twitter Search
3. Automate the Twitter follow process using tweet adder
4. Share and Retweet thoughtfully and frequently
5. Engage – If a business wants to build social media authority, it is all about engagement