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Culture / Amanda Mathis

Are You A Social Media Influencer?

 

This week I read an article entitled Mortgage Rates Reliant on Facebook Pals? in Smart Money Magazine that took me by surprise. Written by senior writer Annie Kadet, the piece describes how your social media tools could affect you financially. One such tool is Klout, which measures one’s influence on the Internet by reviewing your Facebook friends, Twitter followers and usage of other social media sites and then gives you a Klout score (from 0 to 100) based on your perceived influence. This site and others, like PeerIndex and People Browsr, are gaining strength and importance that could eventually affect your personal bottom line.

However, having influence does have its perks. In April of this year, Reebok offered a free pair of RealFlex shoes to the top 100 influencers on PeerIndex. During the holiday season Capital One offered extra bonus miles to customers based on their individual Klout scores.  While the average person has a score of just 20,  Justin Beiber (with his perfect score of 100 thanks to his “beliebers”) and President Barack Obama (with a measly 92) would receive more rewards because of their perceived influence.

So, how do you improve your influencer number? You can update your Facebook status more frequently, add more Instagram photos and tweet more to increase your number. Who knows — your future mortgage rate could depend on how many followers you have on Twitter, rather than being based on fiscal responsibility. So, with that said (and to help me achieve my future dream home), please find me on Twitter here.

Amanda Mathis is a PR Account Executive in Moroch’s Charlotte office. If you’d like to help her increase her Klout, follow her on Twitter at @AmandaMathisSC.

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