Will your breathtaking number of Twitter followers lead to securing that must-have restaurant reservation?
How about an upgrade at your preferred hotel or airline?
Advertising Age reports that the Palms in Las Vegas already is consulting guests’ Klout social media scores when taking reservations and is creating the Klout Club to give social media heavyweights preferred treatment so they can use their influence to sway their followers about the allures of the Palms.
Klout scores measure people’s online influence including True Reach, Amplification Probability and Network Score. Â So, it’s not just about a person’s number of followers and friends, but also about whether Tweets or status updates truly spark conversation and engage the community.
So, if the trend catches on and social media influence leads to first-class upgrades and spa treatments, get ready for a surge of new, social media adherents.
Suddenly, many heretofore social media conscientious objectors and naysayers may feel the overwhelming impulse to tweet.
All of those unavailable rewards flights and blackout dates were getting difficult to deal with anyway, so maybe there will be a new way to earn some perks.
But, it will be disheartening if hotels and other travel companies adopt practices to woo social media heavyweights with special treatment — all for marketing purposes.
Maybe hotels like the Palms and other suppliers should focus instead on improving the overall guest experience rather than singling out the favored few for luxurious treatment.
All of this has parallels to paid-for press trips — already a controversial practice — to view a hotel renovation or a new cruise ship.
It reminds me of the Royal Champions tempest, too.
The next thing you know, and the Federal Trade Commission will have to impose a rule that tweets or updates about a social media-driven upgrade or special amenity will have to come with a disclosure and disclaimer.
I feel I’m commenting too much, so maybe I’ll shut up, but couldn’t resist since I was just working on a product such as Klout – one of probably 200 or so “social media monitoring” firms now, such as Radian6, truCAST, Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics, etc.
You’re dead on, Dennis – hotels, airlines, or any travel org could “listen” to any social media conversations and “engage” “Influencers” for perks, to spread word of mouth, etc.
Basically, brands can listen to everything said about their brand or competitors in any Twitter post, blog post, message board, YouTube comment, etc. Some claim 200 Million “sources”.
Of course, it still needs work. In sampling one of the top companies, the #1 Influencer – for its own brand name keyword – was an Amazon.com DVD product page!
And you should hear what people say about Justin Bieber…I worry about our world…
Jonathan: You are not commenting too much. It gets lonely in these here hills:)
I don’t know, DVD product pages as influencers — yes, I guess all the kinks haven’t been ironed out yet.
” So, it’s not just about a person’s number of followers and friends, but also about whether Tweets or status updates truly spark conversation and engage the community.”
How much is real?
Klout doesn’t measure influence. It measures interaction, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with influence.
Go to your local town square dressed as a Nazi and I’m sure you will get a lot of interaction, but I doubt if you will be influencing anyone.
I’ve seen bots with Klout scores of 66.
Klout measures what is measurable, not what matters. They are far far away from being able to provide a measure of what they want.