Sorry, Klout, I know I largely ignore you these days, but I just have to speak up about this one thing.
Per their Facebook status update: “Our latest Klout Star, Alister Cameron, says ‘take the time to be personal. Engage the little people. Be kind. Listen.'”
The “little people?” Is that me? You? The person you used to get to the person you actually wanted on your blog or Twitter account? The person who faithfully comments but isn’t an “established” anything?
Here’s the quote in context in response to this question: What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their online presence to the next level?
“Firstly, obsess more about your customer/reader/follower than your product/blog/content. One thing I wrote many years ago hit a nerve and I’m proud of it. It’s in reference to blogging, but it applies to everything online. I said at the time, ‘The real reason why nobody reads your blog is this: massively successful blogging is about establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. It’s all about who you know.’ So take the time to be personal. Engage the little people. Be kind. Listen.”
I agree about nurturing relationships, and I think I know what Alister means when he says “Engage the little people.” It’s about not ignoring people who aren’t considered big name stars in your particular niche. Be the one who reaches out, the one who always thanks everyone who bothers to stop by your blog, the one who remembers.
I just wish he’d found another way to say it. None of us want to think of ourselves as “the little people” in any part of the social media world when we’ve got something to say–and we’ve all got something to say. We may not have 300,000 Twitter followers or first page Google ranking, but it doesn’t mean what we say isn’t valid, whether we’ve got our own blog or are commenting on someone else’s.
And really, who decides what makes someone a big name star? At what point do we graduate into “big people” status? Who calls that shot? Is my worth solely determined by amount of attention?
For all I know, this is a tree-falls-in-the-forest argument, and what I’m saying is exactly what Alister said “hit a nerve” years ago. That’s fine. Just while you’re patting yourself on the back for engaging with us, big name stars, don’t call us “little people.”
None of the people I interact with are. They’re all pretty darn special to me.
Author Becky Benishek 
DITTO! SO SO SO agree. The “little people” … that kind of attitude is the very reason our country is in such a big hot mess.
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Thanks for your comment, Noël!
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Becky. I appreciate you taking the time to call me out on that.
Perhaps the wording could have been better. I’m certainly open to that.
What I wanted to do was resonate with people who *feel* like little people. I wanted people starting out in blogging who feel like they’re nobodies from nowhere to feel that here was I, somewhat further down the track, challenging all and sundry to an egalitarianism of sorts.
To use an example. Many, like me, have the Klout add-on thingy in their web browser, so that, as they view their Twitter timelines and lists, they can see Klout scores against people’s status updates. Now, the temptation is there to focus more “conversational effort” on people with higher Klout scores, in the belief that there’s a greater “social ROI” in it.
So when I said little, I partly had in mind low Klout scores. I’d hate to think that people filter their audience by something like Klout score, in order to pay attention only to those with a high score.
Funny then, that as of the latest Klout algo update, my score dropped like a stone from the mid-70s to the mid-50s. I might have been a “star” once, but my Klout score looks pretty darn pedestrian now!!
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Alister, thank you for reading–and for taking the time to comment with some great clarification.
I like what you say about people who “feel” like little people. None of us are born blogging or are instant social media experts. We all have to start somewhere, and the learning never does stop. And I definitely agree that if people start discounting others based on a Klout score and never look any further, they will miss out on great supporters and friends.
I see Klout scores when I look someone up through Hootsuite, but other than that, I don’t go out of my way to notice them. I also don’t use them as a system of measurement anymore. Whether people use it against me–well, that’s not something I have the time to be concerned about. I’ll take being “pedestrian” and saunter in the slow lane with all the other hidden gems!
Thanks again for coming by, I really appreciate it.
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