RT @nialldevitt #Twitter #Business #Ireland Are we still struggling to get it?
I am currently attempting (I stress “attempting”) to create a list of the most influential business twitter users in Ireland.
I am basing this on three factors and weighting them in this order
Num of Retweets and @Mentions
Num of Irish Followers
Total Num of Followers
The results so far have proving very surprising to say the least. Here is a taster of what I mean.
#People with 10,000s of followers and virtually no RTs or @mentions.
#Big Irish brands with lots of followers, but very few RTs or @mentions
#Irish State/Semi State bodies with lots of followers, but very few RTs or @mentions.
#Irish Social Media/Tech Experts with very few RTs or @mentions.
#In fact if you take the top 100 Irish users with the most followers, a surprisingly large amount have very little no RTs or @mentions.
Now this was never going to be name and shame project. In fact my objective was rather to discover the people in Ireland I had most to learn from. That being said, I am very surprised with lack of effectiveness of so many Irish people and organisations with large numbers of followers.
To be clear, I am not questioning the tool here, I am questioning the people using the tool I think it raises an interesting question.
Why would people continue to put time and energy into a tool that appears to generate so little return for them?
Here are some possible causes in my opinion, please let me know if you can think of more.
#Many continue to be obsessed with numbers of followers. The fact that these same followers are paying no attention does not appear to resonate.
#Many continue to view and use Twitter as a broadcast tool only, they remain oblivious to its potential as a relationship builder.
#Many organisations start using Twitter because they feel it’s expected, rather than asking, what could Twitter add to this organisation?
#Twitter merely reflects a society where many are bad listeners or are only focused on the “what’s in it for me?”
#The wrong people within organisations are being entrusted with the responsibility to manage Twitter
#Much of the training/content spoken and written about Twitter is focused on the wrong places - It lacks the sophistication needed to teach people to get the most out of the tool.
The reality is that in most cases, it is probably a combination of above and more. The challenge as I see it is this. Twitter is an extremely easy tool to start to use, the amount of learning is minimal. Twitter is a difficult tool to use effectively, the amount of learning required is much more.
There lies the gap, most people can use Twitter but many struggle to use it in a sophisticated and worthwhile way. In many cases, followers aside, we are still struggling to get it.
Tags: Irish businesses on twitter, Irish Twitter users, social media networking, social media tools, twitter, Twitter in Ireland
August 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I admit that I don’t tend to follow back people who have thousands of followers and followees yet v few tweets ( being of the opinion if they are following that number of people but not tweeting, they are neither really interested in engaging or don’t have anything interesting to say) - never thought of checking out their RTs and mentions
August 14th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hi Lorna, thx for the comments. I think that RTs and mentions are the better indicator of a person’s influence, but I am sure not everyone would agree. Cheers, Niall
August 15th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hi Niall
sounds like you have identified the issues ‘commercial’ twitterers experience. It seems that if you could demonstrate the appliance of the science you have the makings of a great workshop!
August 15th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I wonder if there could be some subtleties in there or not. Depending on the business you are in, people will respond to useful tweets by direct contact via email. No tweets. No mentions. They notice you tweets, check you out and then contact you outside of Twitter.
This happens to me very often. The people who are really interested in me, email me.
Reading Groundswell right now, and reminded of the power of the silent listeners who listen regularly but don’t interact often… (there are some stats with cultural differences in the book which is super cool).
If Twitter strategies fall under 3 broad categories: visibility, sales & loyalty… there might be some nuances in measuring these different categories with RT’s and mentions.
It’s not easy. Bon courage! Looking forward to seeing the list.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Hi Niall,
I never looked at RTs and @’s before, similar to Lorna above. It has certainly made me think - about my own RTs and mentions.
I know that I deleted followers last week that appeared to be following many people but with little followers themselves. I don’t think I was too rash by not looking at their RTs but you never know!
So I went back to check my own level of RTs and mentions…but couldn’t find that info on twitter. Were you using another tool to find that out?
If so, can you let me know what tool you were using?
Many thanks,
Denise
August 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Hi Len, Thanks for your comments. As regards the workshop….maybe? One issue around making this happen is a lack of Twitter analytics. My guess is that this is something that twitter may look to provide down the line.
Hi Cindy, Thanks for your insight. It’s a very fair point and you are right of course, with the best will in the world, I will only ever suceed in getting half the picture. However, someone who has 20000 followers and 3 RTs is unlikely to be generating a significant amount of DMs. There are a number of articles from users who have dumped 1000s of followers because they added nothing in terms of value or interactions.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Hi Denise, If you are looking for own RTs and @mentions/replies, just click on the @denisefay tab under home on the right hand side. To find out about another user just search usind their username (@nialldevitt) Hope this answers your question. Regards, Niall
August 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Hi Niall,
I’m fairly sure we don’t see a tremendous number of RTs or even a very large number of @mentions, but I’m not sure if this is indicative of the overall calibre of our Twitter effort. I suppose it’d be interesting to see those kinds of figures compared to something that might be representative of an “average” individual Twitter user, discounting numbers of followers entirely, but I’m not entirely sure that kind of information is available…
M
August 19th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I have to agree before Ihit the follow button I check out the type of tweets as well as the number to see if I would find the person interesting. I too have unfollowed for the same reason.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Sharon Corr has more followers than virtually anyone else on the island. Check out her @sharon_corr
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