I’m on Klout, which purports to assess a company’s or individual’s “social capital” by the networks they belong to and the interactions they generate in those networks. You may be there, too. It’s a pretty good platform and I like the way it incorporates elements of other networks, such as importing the lists I’ve created on Twitter. Yet a new social media friend, Nate Riggs (@nateriggs), has shown how Klout can be gamed to artificially inflate one’s score. More broadly, right now Klout only lets one connect a handful of social networks (currently 12)–including some that are of marginal importance, and I can only guess are on the roster due to relationships between principals and organizations. So while there is no doubt it has some use as a social media indicator, I question its ability to fully assess and quantify one’s social capital. Klout recently added connectivity to WordPress, but WordPress users or organizations such as me who operate multiple sites based on WordPress–in my case MarketBLOG and my MarketPOWER News 2.0 Newsroom–must choose just one to connect to Klout, and the story is the same for individuals who operate multiples on other networks such as Twitter.

As I say, I’m on Klout, but my approach may best be described, in the words of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as “Trust, but verify.” Another new social media friend, Elijah R. Young (@elijahryoung), has done a far more thorough job than I could ever aspire to of discussing the pros and cons of Klout here.

XeeMe: Global Social Presence Management

Another network with real clout is XeeMe (@uXeeMe), brought to you by the founders of the Social Media Academy, considered to be the leading school for applied social media in business. XeeMe is a social media software company focusing on social presence management; a “XeeMe” lets users or brands organize, grow and monitor their social presence by concentrating all profiles and presence in one place, helping its owner to quickly grow in popularity. XeeMe currently supports about 200 social networks, and users can add other venues as custom links to give the system the truest picture of their online presence. XeeMe analytics help users monitor their progress and success, learn about network relevancy and compare themselves or their brands with others. The Silicon Valley-based company (Palo Alto, California, USA) was founded in 2010 and has users in more than 100 countries.

XeeMe pulls together all of a user’s social media profiles, sites and tools on a single personalized page and URL that enables users to share their presence wherever they go (write/post/publish); a XeeMe address immediately plugs the user into the global social grid to accelerate social presence awareness. The integrated XeeMe analytics provide a broad range of data points to measure progress and success as well as comparing and ranking users. XeeMe offers different flavors of the service so as users advance in their quest to perfect their social presence, they can avail themselves of additional applications and tools to support continued social expansion.

The Secret Sauce

XeeMe created a sophisticated algorithm to measure social presence popularity and site relevance. Unlike scores that are based mainly on a company’s or individual’s social media penetration, XeeMe’s XeePV Social Presence Value is measured by the user’s engagement with the market.

The Team

Social Media Academy Founder and Director Axel Schultze (XeeMe, @AxelS) is CEO of XeeMe. Schultze is one of the early advocates and users, and an experienced advisor, in the social media space. As one of the Alpha users of LinkedIN, a beta user of Twitter and one of the first business executives on Facebook, he has a profound understanding of applied social media in corporations. Social Media Academy Co-Founder and Academy Manager Marita Roebkes (XeeMe, @MaritaR) has been involved in social media since 2003 and has a deep understanding of the social web, its dynamics and tools.

THE BIG FINISH

I like XeeMe, and (here’s the full disclosure part) I liked it long before I was ranked #7 in the world on its Wall of Fame. I was first attracted to it as a way to avoid the growing “logo farm” of social sites starting to overtake every facet of an individual’s or company’s market messaging: just post my XeeMe and that was that. The application of a sophisticated algorithm to capture and quantify social presence value, and comprehensive analytics to help users optimize their social presence, have completed the package–and explain the growing popularity of XeeMe around the globe.

Do you have your XeeMe yet?

JEFF COTRUPE (XeeMe, @MarketPowerLLC) is a researcher, writer, product manager and marketer who has launched more than 20 products and services to help employers and clients generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, M&A and capital.
Top business achievements to date:
[a] Helping put $10M software company CommTech on the map, acquired in three years by ADC for $185.5M; and
[b] Naming Stratecast (“strategy + forecasting”)…then finally joining the firm more than a decade later, in 2010, and launching a brand-new Stratecast research program, ACEM, in 2011.
Proudest personal achievements, always and forever:
Michelle and Heather.