Klout, EmpireAve Add Fun, Competition to Social Media Metrics

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If you’re using social media in your business, non-profit or church, you need to know , “Is it worth my time?” So, if you’re like most people you look at metrics. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and blogs all have ‘em. Before you know it you’re drowning in numbers. Not fun. 😛

So, sites like Klout and Empire Avenue have come onto the scene and added some fun and competition the social media metrics scene.

Klout

With Klout, you connect your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles to Klout, it analyzes all those metrics and spits out your Klout score, a single number that is supposed to indicate how influential you are in social media. It also displays a graph of your Klout scores for each day of the last month, so you can see how your score has fluctuated over time.

There’s something magically simple and compelling about having a single number. And because you can compare your Klout scores over time and to other people’s scores, it brings out the competitive part of us. You can’t help but check back each day to see if you’re score has gone up or down.

Empire Avenue

Empire Avenue is like a social media stock market. People buy and sell shares of each other based on their social media influence. It’s a game as people try to make the best investments, earn the most income, and generate the highest net wealth. But, the game facilitates social media connections between players, and it creates incentives to improve your social media numbers because the more fans, followers, connections, retweets, blog posts, etc you have the more you earn and the higher your stock price can go.

The upside of sites like Klout and Empire Avenue is they make social media metrics fun and competitive. The downside is they have the potential to get a person focused on those scores rather than the real reason you started using social media in the first place – to connect with new people, communicate, and strengthen relationships with clients, supporters, and church members.

Have you tried out Klout or Empire Avenue? If so, what do you think? Do you think they’re helpful or a distraction?

Oh, and if you are on Empire Avenue, feel free to buy shares of me. 😉 I’ll buy some of your shares in return.