<Editor’s Note> I’m very excited to introduce you all to Stephanie Trinh aka @stef_funny!  She’s the newest member of my team here at Marketing Melodie. She’s an ambitious Business Marketing Student at SDSU, is filled with positive energy and is even a fellow marketing nerd! I’ll let Stephanie take it from here. HIT IT STEPHANIE! </Editor’s Note>

We all influence one another, the question is, how much of an influence are we? In 2008, a social media analytic website called Klout was founded to help us measure our level of influence on our audience. Klout gives each individual a score from 1 to 100, based on the individual’s ability to drive action through their social networks. Actions are considered as how many mentions and retweets you receive on Twitter; comments, wall-posts and likes on Facebook and so on for all the other social media networks that you are able to link Klout to. Klout also gives you an idea of the topics you are influential on, and if the people in your network agree with Klout, they can give you a +K.

Just recently, I discovered Klout Perks. By having a Klout account you are eligible for Klout Perks, but certain perks are targeted to specific users based on their score, influential topics, location and more. The perks consist of free or discounted products and/or services. From analyzing all the Klout Perks that have been offered, I’ve come up with three reasons companies may benefit from offering Klout Perks:

1. It’s great brand exposure.
As individuals are browsing through all the perks because their curiosity got the best of them, and whether or not they qualify for the perk, they are still being exposed to your brand. The best part is, your brand is getting a ton of impressions, but you don’t have to pay the CPI price!

2. It’s a viral opportunity for your business.
Some of the most influential individuals will be redeeming one of your sponsored packages. These individuals are the ones that are highly active in their social networks and will be telling their fans about the fun perks they’ve received through Klout, which means they will be talking about your brand!

3. You can use Klout to measure your outreach success!
Klout gives you a lot of insight in the digital world. See who you influence the most, whether it may be a competitor or a loyal fan. You can also see the topics you are influential on, and how your influence compares to your competitors.

Here is an example of how successful Popchip’s campaign went:

Popchips’ campaign was targeted towards healthy trendsetters. They offered a popchips sample kit, hoping that this would be shared and passed along to friends and family. Only 300 influencers were able to claim the perk but there was 14,819 tweets about the perk along with 46.7 million impressions of the perk.

Are you interested in getting your business involved with Klout? All you’ve got to do is contact Klout here then talk to us at Marketing Melodie and we’ll help you come up with  an effective marketing strategy on how to integrate Klout and digital tools.

You can connect with Stephanie on Twitter, Google+ and check out her blog, Marketing Nerd!