Over the last few months Klout has gained more popularity among Indian entrepreneurs. I have noticed not only more invitations on my facebook account for Klout but also more questions on Klout score optimization. Most entrepreneurs who are not technical (have a sales, business development or operations background) seem to be increasingly interested in increasing their Klout score in the hope that it will improve their chances of gaining customers or meeting investors.  It actually does neither. While Klout has its place in scoring social media engagement, it is fairly narrow in its measure of influence is my opinion.

As an early indicator of future success I always look at developers as the early adopters before Marketing and Sales professionals. I have never found marketers tell or show me something a developer had not shown me a few days, weeks or months ago. That’s not to say they are late adopters, but my feeling is that someone has to have developed it for the marketer to know about it. That someone is a developer. Developers tend to talk to other developers to get feedback and perspective first, which is why the early adopter set for most new and innovative products are developers.

Most developers have been focused on increasing their Hacker News Karma for a few years now and not their Klout score.

I have found that the single biggest source of traffic and converted users for either my blog, or two of the previous web apps that I was developing was Hacker News. More than a post on any of the top media blogs in the US.

So, if I were a marketer or sales person who was a founder, and am looking to get early adopters, meet with potential investors, etc. I would spend more time on HN, than Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.