One of the greatest assets, if not the greatest, of social media professionals is undoubtedly online reputation. We have already spoken before of the capital importance of this aspect, but, once again, it is necessary to point out that online reputation is our business card.

Obviously, we all want to be seen by others as great professionals, serious and interesting to follow and with whom it is worth relating, so every day we strive to do our job as best as possible, to get that reputation and have influence in the others.

Frequently, professionals, especially those who start in this Social Media, worry too much about knowing their level of reputation and influence in others, and when they discover the popular tool Klout, they see the open sky, never better said , and base all their acts on trying to increase the score of this tool.

These factors, the influence and the reputation, are two aspects too complex to be able to be measured by an algorithm, which is what Klout is based on or any of the different tools that exist for this purpose, so that the results we can can not be too reliable.

Despite the existence of many tools to measure this aspect, it is worth asking if, really, these tools are effective or are a simple means of feeding the ego of users. Reputation and influence are not marked by three or four tools, but by the users themselves.

It can be a challenge to capture and capture the attention of users, but we can know when we achieve it thanks to the reactions, comments and opinions about the information we generate and share.

On the other hand, social networks can be conceived as a great thermometer of the reputation of a professional, since, generally, if the mentions are positive, it is logical to think that this enjoys a good reputation, while if what we find about he is negative, he will not be very well considered. Something obvious, right?

By way of example it should be noted that Social Networks are becoming a key element of the recruitment processes for this same reason. The Human Resources departments are using the candidate’s online reputation as one of the hiring criteria: if they find something negative or that does not fit their idea, it is a point against their hiring.

Therefore, reputation and influence are measured by people, not tools. When we work to improve we must do it thinking about our audience, to give the best of ourselves, not to raise a figure that, really, is useless.