New Social Networking Resources for Writers

Resources for the writer's toolkit

Regardless of which route writers take toward publication, we're increasingly responsible for marketing our work, and for managing our online presence. That's one of the many reasons I'm happy for publications like Poets & Writers, which keeps me abreast of new resources. One resource listed in the November/December is Klout, which measures online influence.

Klout looks at the extent of a person's online friendships and professional connections to measure influence. Recommending, sharing and creating content  engages and impacts others, and the KloutScore measures that impact on a scale of 1 to 100, based on a person's ability to drive action. The scoring system uses data from social networks to measure what Klout considers three key areas: true reach — how many people you influence, amplification — how much you influence them, and network impact — the influence of your network.

If you're like me, you'd usually rather be writing, but knowing about what's out there for tools, and having the ability to use those that work best, is another skill for the writer's toolkit.

Check out Klout, and post a comment on what you think.

Happy writing!