Want to know if you have clout on the Web?  Now there’s a way to track your self-brand!  It’s called Klout!

I love anything that not only premeditates the presence of an issue, but that also includes a thoughtful solution for it.

The Issue: As people become increasingly focused on the world of internet marketing, social media, self-branding and social networking, it’s easy to lose track of how well our efforts are actually doing.

The Solution: Klout

The traditional definition of the word “clout” is, “pull; strong influence; muscle”, so it’s easy to see where the Klout team has drawn its inspiration from.  Put simply, Klout is a social media scorecard.  The site assigns individuals a personal “Klout Score”, ranging from 1 to a 100, which is a measure “of your overall online influence”.

It derives the score by using your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account activity and very intelligently takes into account various parameters to rank your influence (ex: how influential are the people you interact with?).  As simple as this may sound, it is Klout’s simplicity that is its greatest strength.  Klout has made all of the crucial analytics particularly digestible and competitively enjoyable to track.

Just check out the “Dashboard” and “Profile” features which are packed full of helpful categories:

• “Influenced By…” (track who influences you)
• “You Influence” (well…that’s pretty clear; track people who you influence)
• “Score Analysis” (track the progress of your Klout Score)
• “Influential About…” (my favorite feature; track topics you are influential on)

When you make a Klout account, (which is both quick to set up and a crucial tool for working on self-branding), don’t be discouraged if your score lands somewhere in the bottom of that 1-100 range. My personal score is 46, and I’m referred to as a “Networker”, two things  I’m extremely proud of, considering SheBytes is still in its infancy and I absolutely love networking.

Klout has totally transported the customary understanding of “clout” to the modern age, and transformed it from an intimidating adjective into a desirable personal quality.

Go set up your account, and tell us if you have Klout!