Two Turbo-Groovy Social Media/Blogging Questions Answered

Welcome to Techie Tuesday here at More Cowbell! This is the day of the week when I let my inner geek come out and play with y’all.

Many of you know that I’m a software trainer in The Day Job. At this point I’ve been doing it about half my life, which is just freaky. Sometimes my (adult) students like “that computer” but usually they hate it, which means I’m also kind of good at the “duck and cover” moves. [Think of me as The Software Ninja.]

This week, I was asked some questions about Klout and using infographics. I can always use more knowledge on both of these topics, so I went looking for answers, which of course I’ll share with all of you.

THE QUESTIONS

#1 — How do I raise my Klout score?

First of all, what’s Klout? The Klout Score, a number between one and 100, is a representation of your overall social media influence.

The science behind “the score” examines more than 400 variables on multiple social networks beyond your number of followers and friends. It looks at who is engaging with your content and who they are sharing it with.

Some interesting posts I found on Klout:

• 6 Ways To Raise Your Klout Score in Inc. Magazine
• Kristen Lamb wrote two posts on Klout last year: Numbers Are Our Friend–Writers and the Wild World of Metrics and The Dark Side of Metrics–Writer Friend or Ticket to Crazy Town?

Note: Rumors swirl that hiring managers, agents and publishers look at Klout scores. Customer service departments are starting to pay attention to Klout as well. Please don’t think any of that means you need to worry about it if you’re not already there!

My personal tips on raising your score, if you care to:

• Add several avenues for measurement. Klout allows you to connect social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, LinkedIn, Google+, Flickr and YouTube. As yet, it doesn’t have Pinterest, but I wish it did. I’d recommend you have at least 3 connected. The people I’ve seen with great scores have six or more.
• My friends who are really active on Facebook seem to have higher scores. I don’t know if this is coincidental or not. As mentioned above, I think the number of networks connected is more important.
• Give out lots of Klout to others in the form of +K’s. Seriously, do this. Not only will it make you feel good, you will get +K’s back, which will raise your Klout score. Also, the more you give your +Ks away, the more you’ll be given.

What the heck is a +K? If you look up someone in Klout (usually by clicking on their name) and scroll to the bottom of the screen, you’ll see the Top 3 topics where they’re considered influential.

In the pic below, I’d just given away all my +K’s for the day so the topics are greyed out, rather than orange. I’d just click the “Give +K” button to give to Kristen if I had any left.

#2 — How do I create an Infographic?

First of all, what is an “infographic?”

This is where people get a picture with charts and numbers and such comparing something like WordPress vs. Blogger or Michael Jordan vs. Kobe Bryant.

As Lynda.com says: Infographics—also referred to as information graphics—tell stories in interesting and unique ways through the art of illustration.

It’s a quick way to disseminate a lot of information and they’re pretty cool, especially for us bloggers.

To the right is a sample from Lynda.com (they also offer techie courses on how to do it here).

The other cool links I found on Infographics:

• 10 Fun Tools To Easily Make Your Own Infographics – Edudemic
• How to make an infographic online: five essential free tools – eConsultancy.com

I also received a bunch of question on search engine optimization (commonly called SEO), but this post was getting so long, we’re going to save that for another post.

Do you yearn for snappy infographics or kvetch about your Klout? Were these new terms for you or old hat? Do you have some questions I have yet to answer? Enquiring minds LOVE to know these things here at More Cowbell!

Jenny

Special Announcement:

Registration is now open for WANACon, an entirely online writer’s conference (including the opportunity to book appointments with agents).

The conference runs February 22 to February 23, and you can register for one day or both. I’m currently scheduled to teach at least one session and I don’t know yet which day. I’ll be sure to announce it immediately when I know.
Click here to register for both days.
Click here to register for Day 1.
Click here to register for Day 2.