marketing – Baghdad By The Bay

My wife tipped me off to an article after I read a newspaper article about how tech savvy businesses are asking people their Klout scores in job interviews. I have been asked my Klout score on at least two interviews and I believe their influence in social media is unfair as well as unjust and I’m going to get into that area now.

I heard about Klout [which wordpress keeps automatically changing to clout so it isn’t as influential as it may want you to think it is] through some of my friends on twitter, so I jumped off the bridge because they did and joined up with said website.I started out with a score in the high 40’s which slowly moved up to 67. I thought it was pretty good at the time and then they changed their algorithm and I dropped down to 50 overnight. As a matter of fact, I noticed that everyone I saw on Klout that I had influence with dropped overnight. This was kind of like devaluing the dollar and then having banks tell you that the $10,000 you had in savings is now only $5,000. The company is acting recklessly yet companies who value social media take it seriously.

I have clout. When I walked into a Mayoral debate, several of the candidates for mayor knew me on site and walked up and shook my hand. Some didn’t because I had spoken ill of them and had even had their campaign coordinators call me to speak with me. There are many restaurants and businesses in San Francisco that when I walk into them the owners know me by name and welcome me. Some even ask my opinion on new dishes they are thinking of selling. I’ve got clout. My Klout score on the the other hand speaks differently.

Klout says it takes it’s information from many different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, etc. Recently it’s said that it’s new algorithm uses only the four previously mentioned sites, but I disagree. I have many posts on Facebook, LinkedIn and FourSquare, but have recently declined in my twitter posts to maybe once or twice a day and noticed my Klout score decreased daily until one day I posted four tweets and it suddenly jumped up a point. Some of my fellow twits decided to do a test one day and we started a conversation on twitter about Klout going back and forth and the next day I had jumped up 5 points.

Klout is highly weighted towards twitter usage. That has become obvious and I defy them to prove otherwise. This website has reached out to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. I am known, yet there are people data farmed on Klout who are shown to have influence on topics that A: They know nothing about and B: are not on Klout. When I joined it took me over a month before Klout showed that I have influence on several topics. The topic that I have the most Klout on according to the website is Smartphones. The least amount of Klout I have is on San Francisco. While I love my iPhone I regularly write about San Francisco so I think it should be the other way around. They aren’t taking this blog into account. I am one of the few born and raised San Franciscans who writes about San Francisco. I would think Woody LaBounty of the Western Neighborhoods Project should have more Klout on San Francisco than me, but his score is only 21 and his topic of influence is Geneva. I don’t know if that’s the street or the city in Switzerland, but something is not right here.

Klout is currently in beta so nobody should be taking it too seriously, so it seems strange to me that there are companies looking for people with social media skills that ARE taking Klout seriously. If people are going to use Klout they should seriously consider it’s value with a large Siberian salt mine at the moment.

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San Francisco has a bit of a conundrum on its hands with business. If you have more than three stores you are considered a “chain store” and can’t open any more stores even if there is a demand for your services. Yet, why is there a starbucks every half mile? Why are there so many Chevron, 76 and Shell stations? Why are there so many 7-11’s?

According to the books, San Francisco wants to keep local businesses at the forefront. So the mom and pop who invested money in a 7-11 to open it up in their neighborhood aren’t considered local businesses, yet myspace, google, apple, microsoft can open offices here while they aren’t San Francisco based businesses? Interesting way of thinking. There was a paint store that wanted to open up in the old Hollywood video store [chain!] on Mission street, but because they were a distributor of Glidden paint they were considered a chain and couldn’t move in. Yet we have a paint store in the Sunset that is the exclusive distributor of Kelly-Moore [chain!] paint, so much so that it’s called, “Kelly-Moore Paint” and that isn’t a problem?

I have at one time had a chance to visit the mother of all chain stores Wal-Mart and I was surprised by what I found there. DEALS! That was over 10 years ago and I’m still wearing the socks that I got for $3 for 6 pairs. In this down turned economy that is “coming back” people need a deal. Mom and Pop who run the small place on the corner can’t give you that. The corner “convenience” [liquor] store that sells a six pack of budweiser for twice as much as your local grocery store [chain!] can’t really compete and you’ll probably notice that there is a lack of corner “convenience” [liquor] stores starting to show up.

There are things that every one of us need. Socks, underwear, gas, food. I don’t really care if it was hand made by underpaid naked virgins in Guatemala [out sourced!]. I just want it to fit and hold up over time. I don’t want to pay $5 for a handmade cupcake made with 70% cacao when I can get 6 for $3 made with Hershey’s [chain!] dark chocolate.

New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg made a trip here recently made a trip to San Francisco and our new interim first Asian American Mayor [we’ll just ignore that Daly City beat us to the punch on that, because Filipinos aren’t the same kind of Asian we’re talking about] Ed Lee gave Mr. Bloomberg a Cable Car bell and locally made, organic hot dogs. Hot dogs? I haven’t seen a cow or a pig in San Francisco since I last went to the zoo. What about our locally made Boudin sourdough bread [chain!]? Or our crab? I have never heard one person say, “Damn I want me a San Francisco Hot Dog!” That’s because we’re San Francisco! We aren’t know for our hot dogs. There is the Treasure Island Frank which I can’t find any info on why a big hot dog is associated with Treasure Island, but they are difficult to find nowadays and I doubt that’s what Ed Lee gave Mr. Bloomberg.

I honestly don’t see a problem with chain stores. They bring affordable wares to the masses, employ people, albeit at usually a low wage, but only people willing to take low wages would work at a similar Mom and Pop local business. Daly City is taking away tons of San Francisco dollars because they’ll allow Target and other chain stores that provide deals that you can’t get here in San Francisco, so why not let them go in here and give back to the city that desperately needs the money? Kudos to the Board of Supervisors for loosening the stick up their collective butts for allowing Lowe’s to move into one of the worse parts of town. I never see any of those San Francisco resident employees with a frown on their face.

OK, rant off for now. Time to go back to talking about the things that make San Francisco the greatest place to be. It’s just getting harder to find.

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Tag: marketing

The Chain Gang of San Francisco