Klout unveils its most influential retailers

Amazon and Victoria’s Secret are among the top retailers, at least based on their Klout scores that are getting shoppers talking about them via social media. Klout.com measured the retailers’ online influence, using its own algorithm,

on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare to determine the 10 retailers with the highest Klout scores from the past 90 days activity.

Amazon.com claims top spot with a Klout score of 82, followed by Victoria’s Secret with 75. Other fashion retailers in the top 10 included JC Penney in third position with 75, and Target and Macy’s claimed ninth and tenth with 72 and 71 respectively.

One of the key measurements was Twitter, and Klout listed the number of retweets each retailer received, as well as the number of unique people mentioning the retailers to find out whether the brands are reaching new audiences and whether those people are influential themselves.

The clear leader was Amazon with 85,000 mentions and 1,200 retweets, in second spot Victoria’s Secret could only manage 47,000 mentions, but did receive more than 4,000 retweets, and JC Penney attracted 6,500 mentions and 3,200 retweets.

The list also highlighted the different approaches to customer service, for instance some retailers like Macy’s respond to nearly all of their users individually, while other retailers answer support questions sparingly or separate customer service completely from their main social media channels.

Klout.com has been measuring social media influence since 2008 and works on three main areas: True reach - how many people you influence; Amplification - how much you influence them; and Network impact - the influence of your network.