On Throwing Your Klout Around

I am @melissaterras. I have just shy of 4500 followers on twitter, a blog which garnered 100,000 readers last year, and a current Klout score of 64. I tend to take this kind of thing with a grain of salt: I hang out on social media because I enjoy it and it has also proved useful and beneficial to my career. I’m aware I’m not Justin Bieber and that my stats – while above average - are not particularly big shakes.  But over the past few weeks a few things have happened which have made me think about digital identity, responsibility, and where academic use of social media crosses into the “real life” arena.

Case 1. I travel a lot with work, usually using Opodo to book tickets. A few weeks ago I found myself locked out of “My Opodo” and couldn’t access it to check itineraries, tickets, or print boarding passes, etc.  I tried getting in touch with customer services, spending hours on the phone, emailing, tweeting and asking for help. Nothing. With an upcoming trip, and growing frustration (spending an hour on hold to Opodo is never in the plan of my day) I posted a few disgruntled tweets about their shocking customer service, which, retweeted by some followers, had the potential to reach over 10,000 users within a matter of minutes. My mobile rang. Opodo – a firm reknowned for not answering customer complaints in a timely fashion- had phoned me to help resolve the problem.

I’ve seen it reported that Klout scores andtwitter follower counts are now being paid attention by customer services, but while I can provide various concrete examples of why having a digital profile has helped my academic career, this is the first time I can point to something which has actually helped resolve an issue I have had with a commercial entity. I’m simultaneously aghast that it would take an above average twitter following to help you get on a departing flight, and relieved that it helped me to get an increasing pressing travel issue sorted out.  What about those not-so-valued customers that didn’t manage to get the issue resolved in time?

Case 2 is where I now am aware that writing something online could cost a local business tens of thousands of pounds in business. I’m not happy with the project management company who looked after a build at our home, as the ceiling is now leaking, and they are ignoring any enquiries we are making to help have this sorted.  It would be easy for me to name them here, linking to their website, and within a couple of days if you googled for them my blog post would appear above their own website in the rankings, due to the fact that my blog is tapped into more existing networks than theirs.

It would seem that, at the moment, the easiest tool at my disposal to use is my digital identity. Indeed, it is probably the only leverage I have to stop the growing discolouration of our new dining room ceiling. But that makes me uneasy, as I know how difficult it would be for them to claw back in a negative customer comment once it has been broadcast online, and we are happy in general with our build and are sure this is a minor issue to resolve. Should I be throwing my klout around, if it will negatively affect others in the long term?  

I’m left thinking of the increasingly intertwined nature of customer service, digital presence, and moral responsibility. Whilst I was playing at this, this stuff got real.