Measuring Influence on Twitter

Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore was named “the most influential Twitter user in the world" in INQ Mobile's 2009 Twitter influence study.

Don't get too excited -- the study doesn't really measure influence. ICQ picked the 5 most popular Twitter users in each category, then looked at just four metrics:

• The number of ‘tweets’ they send
• The number of times they ‘re-tweet’ others’ updates
• The number of times that person’s updates have been ‘re-tweeted’
• The number of times they are referenced in other people’s ‘tweets’

This is a step in the right direction -- certainly better than just looking at number of followers. But it misses some key points about influence.

Media and marketers try to identify influencers for two reasons. First, so that they can identify new issues and trends before they take off. And second, so that they can use them to make their own messages or products more successful.

People trying to identify influencers need to look at more than just Twitter volume. They need to examine things like:

• Whether tweets drive additional discussion, or just re-tweets
• Whether tweets drive targeted actions (of all kinds, from clicks and purchases to political actions)
• Whether tweets are quoted and discussed in other media channels, or limited to Twitter
• What percentage of tweeted topics actually reach a critical threshold
• Their audience profile: what kind of people they influence
• Their scope of influence: what topics or fields they’re influential in

These last two are critical. While "the most influential Twitter user in the world" sounds impressive, what really matters is whether someone is influential about the topics relevant to my audience, constituents, or customers.

Conclusion? Media and marketers looking for their next trend-spotter or über-spokesperson will have to keep looking.


INQ press release: http://www.inqmobile.com/blog/twitterati/
Mashable article: http://mashable.com/2009/12/17/twitter-influence-study/