This week I cashed in on one of my Klout "perks" and got to drive around in a Chevy Volt for the weekend for free. How was the experience? Was it an effective marketing program? Did it impact my perception of Klout? Or Chevy?

What's a Klout Perk?

If you're not familiar with Klout, they are a service that gives you a "score" for your social influence. At this moment, my Klout score is 51.22. 

Klout Perks are rewards that brands give you to "reward you" for your social influence. Those rewards range from free Pop Chips to early access or discount codes on various websites to a free Chevy Volt for the weekend.

Brands participate to build awareness. Pop Chips and Chevy hope I'll write nice blog posts about my experience with their products and share them with my thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

How was the Perk experience?

I have to say, as a consumer the overall Klout Perk experience was pretty good. I got an email saying I had earned a Perk. A couple of clicks later I had opted in for a free car for the weekend. I was asked to fill out a 6-question survey which seemed like a small price to pay. I got a very courteous call to reconfirm my loan. And then they delivered the car to my office on Friday afternoon.

I should point out (and I assume someone at Chevy is reading this) that the folks from Page One Auto who handled the fulfillment of the program went over and above. I'm embarrassed to admit I forgot they were dropping the car at my office and had run out to a client meeting. Jeannique McGlothen from Page One was not only understanding about the mishap, she drove to my house in Oakland and dropped the car off on her way home from work. Give that woman a raise.

Are Perks good marketing?

I think so. Obviously I'm writing about it, so mission accomplished there.

The way that car companies approach marketing is to have specific programs for specific parts of the marketing funnel. One of those parts is getting people inside of cars to take a test drive. So, mission accomplished again.

Of course, every program is going to have its own ROI associated with it and the brand impression will only be as good as the product once a Perk is cashed in.

So, bring your own spreadsheet, but know that YES running Perks is good marketing.

What about Klout?

I have been critical of Klout in the past. I think they are trying to do two very different things and that jeopardizes their focus. 

On one hand, they want to reward people for their influence. I watched a video on their site of the CEO saying that is their mission. I think they are hitting it out of the park on that one.

On the other, their tag line is "the Standard for Influence" and it is my impression that they are trying to make Klout scores appeal to marketers as just that. Don't count your Twitter followers or Facebook fans—use our obscurely formulated number as your social media metric.

To me this is off-base and unnecessary. It's off-base because your Klout score is pretty easily gamed. For instance, I am active on Twitter and Facebook, but don't really use Google+ actively. When I synced my Google+ account to Klout, my score dropped 10 points. So I un-synced my Google+ account. Voila. Klout score back up in the 50s.

It is also unnecessary because all marketers need to realize is that Klout is a great platform to run programs on. Klout makes money. Brands make money. Consumers get happy. Why try to force fit being the alternative to Radian 6 into the model?

All that said, I've got to admit: I check my Klout score all the time now and look forward to the perks when they pop up in my email. I think they've done a great job connecting brands with influencers in a very positive way and that they will be very successful in the years to come.

What about my Chevy Volt?

It's a hot car. My friends were very impressed when Jeannique pulled up in front of the house. I enjoyed driving it. We had a beautiful Father's Day drive through the Marin Headlands up to the Point Bonita lighthouse that my family will never forget.

Thanks for that, Chevy.

If I'm going to be honest, I also thought the car had some drawbacks. The dashboard confused the hell out of me. I kept getting lost trying to figure things out. All the buttons and flashy lights were distracting. I loved having the OnStar button over my head, but I was kind of disappointed when I asked for the best hamburger place in my vicinity and they put me on hold for four minutes and then disconnected me.

And, I never really understood the electric car part—it seems like I had to plug the car into my garage for six hours to get an extra 35 miles of range from the electric motor and then it shifted to gas.

But I did enjoy riding in the HOV lane. 

Clearly, my son Will did as well.