Since the dawn of social media way back in the mists of history, people have been trying to figure out how to accurately gauge the impact and ROI of their tweeting, Facebooking, and LinkedIn efforts. While there is no perfect tool, many social media specialists, including those of us here at Roundpeg, think that Klout is the best tool currently on the market. Lorraine has talked on this blog before about Klout, but in the past few days, it’s undergone some radical changes.

Some people try to measure social media efficacy with pure number of followers or friends. That raw number is fairly unhelpful.  For example: what if you have many followers who ignore every word you say? Or what if they’re all spam bots? Instead, Klout measures how influential you are among your followers, tracking a variety of statistics including unique @ senders, unique retweeters, your true reach (how many people act on your content), and your number of retweets, among others.

There have been several blog posts lately criticizing Klout, and they all have good points. However, I find Klout is a great tool.  It encourages me to keep reaching out to people and build new relationships. Sure, some people don’t need the carrot of an ever-increasing number dangling in front of them to quantify their efforts, but for me, it’s a solid kick in the pants to keep me on track: I haven’t been getting retweets, I better create better content; I haven’t been getting @ replies, I better reach out more. Klout is just the prodding I need to avoid complacency and keep climbing to the top.

So what’s your view on Klout? Love it or loathe it?

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And whether you love or hate Klout, take a minute and take our twitter survey. We want to know how small business owners are using twitter.  Take the Survey Now!