June 21, 2011 By The Blog Designer Network

Social media is obviously a vital companion to online businesses.  Twitter and Facebook are the most important, and most widely used, social media outlets for both bloggers and businesses.  If you have an account and follow people, you’ll notice that some members have millions of followers, and some just a handful.  But what does that tell you about how they influence their followers?

Ideally we would all love to have millions of followers, but WHY?  So we can market ourselves to our followers?  Charge sponsors for tweets?  Direct followers to your website to purchase items?  All of these goals are excellent, but sheer numbers are just a part of social media and shouldn’t be used to determine success.  It’s how you influence your followers that is more important than numbers, and there is an easy and convenient way to gauge where you and others stand.

If you haven’t signed up for Klout.com – go now! It’s free! It’s an excellent tool that connects your various online presences (currently Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin) and gauges how you rank, who you influence, who influences you, and much more.

It shows you simple, detailed analyses of different areas and gives easy-to-read charts and graphs to help you understand what it’s measuring.

Did you know there are also Klout perks? The more influential you are, the higher likelihood that you will get better perks and freebies!

Klout is an excellent free tool to help you set goals and increase your social media presence and influence, which will in-turn create more opportunities for you to grow your business!