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.