Wes Cutshall

Sometimes Klout creates profiles for Twitter accounts that it has discovered. It’s possible that you’ll find that Klout has created a profile for a Twitter account that you own, possibly one of your websites. After claiming your Klout account here are the important steps to follow to clean up your account.

Profile Settings

Using the top-right navigation menu (where your profile name/picture is) to go to Settings. Verify that your Brand Name is as you want it to be. Check to be sure the correct profile picture is being used. And make sure the correct profile text is being used. Klout will use the profile text from Twitter, or you can enter your own text.

Connected Networks

Add your other social networks. Be sure to connect to your Facebook fan page and any other profiles that you have for this account/websites. Normally the profile page is asking you to do this when you first sign in. If not, you can do this under Account > Settings > Connected Networks.

Remove Topics

Under Topics, remove any unrelated topics from your account. My FidoFinder.com account had topics of about 10 different cities. Although it was nice that I had already received +K’s, I actually want to be an influencer of other topics than people’s favorite cities.

Add Topics

Now add your targeted Topics. This is where you decide what you want to be know for. For Fido Finder I chose Dogs and Shelters and Rescues.

Remove Influencers

Under Influencers remove any of the your Influencers that you don’t feel are valid. For me this meant removing every single one that was auto-generated by Klout. I had no idea who these people were.

Add Yourself as an Influencer

Add your personal account as an Infuencer.

+K Yourself

Give your personal account at least one +K for one of your Topics. If you do not have valid topics set up on your personal account, save your +K’s for when you do.

I just signed up for Klout and was poking around on my personal profile. I noticed that some of my websites already had Klout profiles that I had not created. At first I thought that fans had taken it upon themselves to create accounts for the websites, but after reading the FAQ I found that Klout will create accounts, at will, from existing Twitter accounts that it discovers. I don’t know if there are any criteria for this, but it’s clearly stated that they do this. So I realized that this is most likely what happened. The question I had was, “How do I now claim this Klout account as mine?” since I own the websites. The FAQ does not cover this topic at all. So here is what I discovered.

To claim a Kout account that was automatically created for a Twitter account that you own:

1. While signed in as your personal Klout account click the account that you want to claim. You either noticed it in your Influencers list or search for it using the search box. Copy the URL of the profile.
2. Then you must sign into Twitter.com as that account. I have an account for every website that I tweet from, but I’m never logged in as these accounts. After signing into Twitter as the desired account, visit the Klout profile that you copied.
3. Klout will provide you with a “Connect with Facebook” or “Sign in with Twitter” option. You want to sign in with Twitter.
4. You will now sign in to Klout using the Twitter username and password of the account which you want to “claim.”
5. Once you have done this you have essentially connected the two accounts. You can now use Klout as this account (when signed in to Twitter as this account) and clean up any data that you want.
6. Here is a list of things to do once you claim your account.