Klout, tweet life, and what it all means.

By: Meredith Darling | @merdar A little over two weeks ago Klout, a startup that measures social media digital influence, rolled out a new algorithm after users began questioning its accuracy. Your Klout score is now determined by calculating how many people you influence, how much you influence them, and how influential they are. Confused? Basically, you don't get points for talking to someone who doesn't tweet, doesn't follow anyone, and isn't being followed.

If you follow hundreds of accounts on Twitter, and your followers follow hundreds of accounts, how long do your tweets last? Check your Klout score for answers. Now, a new study on the Klout Blog shows a correlation between high Klout scores and long tweet life. The infographic below shows the half-life of a tweet. A half-life being the point when half of all retweets happened before that time (25 minutes for example) and half occurred after 25 mintues. Bit.ly did a similar study and found the half-life of a link to be about three hours. That number jumps to seven if you publish it on YouTube.

You will find that accounts with a Klout score of 0-40 have a longer half-life than those with a score of 40-70; it is important to note that while their half-life is longer, the overall volume of retweets is much lower. Raise you Klout score above 75 and your messages could last up to 70 times longer than the average active social media user.

Knowing these statistics, will you or your company change your tweeting style to become more influential?

Will Nesbit