The importance of visual appeal continues to dominate the social headlines this week as hot on the heels of Klout’s makeover, Kred has announced a total site revamp that hopes to move the idea of social influence beyond “mere numbers and scores”.

Many bigger brands are no doubt already au fait with the benefits of both of these influence-measuring platforms and should be, in theory, using them to uncover powerful voices, gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns and keep tabs on the competition.

However, we have seen time and time again the inability of many companies to understand social data, and previously the likes of Klout and Kred would churn out a series of numbers and scores for marketing departments to decipher as they saw fit, despite the transparency involved in the algorithms used to calculate them.

In a bid to make social data more intuitive, then, both platforms have been given very visually-centric revamps. Klout has made-over its consumer facing site by upping its number of influence signals and presenting this information in a less data-centric, more accessible manner. Kred meanwhile has launched a redesign that takes all manner of social info and packages it neatly into pretty charts and interactive graphics, all within an attractive Pinterest-like main-page grid.

Both look good and do indeed add an element of fun to what were previously static and intangible figures. Plus it opens up the business of social influence to new markets: smaller businesses are unlikely to feel intimidated by the data and Average Joe social media users can satiate their curiosity over their social standing in just a few clicks.

The latter is particularly important, as in order to become a mainstay of digital life influence platforms need to integrate themselves fully into the public consciousness, and this means getting people to actually care about social influence.

However, as we’re already seeing examples of social influence infiltrate ‘the real world’, with professors grading according to Klout scores, or instances of employment discrimination regarding potential social reach, Klout and Kred may not have to do a great deal extra to rope users in.