Those of us who reason we have a professional duty… a purpose on Twitter besides, broadcasting personal opinions muchado about nothing in particular, are constantly in-search of this perfect balance between optimal social media expenditure and real life. A cost-benefit analysis of sorts. How much of my 24hr day time-equity shall I spend on 140 character tweets?
So what’s the magic ticket? Even though our grandparents wouldn’t have a clue what a tweet is, their answers to our modern day balancing act still ring true… moderation. More is not necessarily better. I’m a numbers cruncher. I’m all about hard data, analytics, and engaging in teenaged eye-rolls when I read qualitative assumptions. I’ve been crunching and the data is clear, more tweets do not equal a higher conversion, an increased following, a necessarily higher Klout score, or a jump in engagement numbers. Sometimes less is more. Just like IRL, quality always trumps quantity. Spare yourself time and energy and spare your following…pace yourself.
I challenge anyone (geeky enough like me who gets goose bumps when I can compare real apples to apples using hard data) to this fact of social engagement: there’s ZERO association between more tweets and increased engagement. In fact, what I see from running the analytics of many of the largest Super Tweeters, is their engagement numbers are incredibly poor. (Qualification here. Celebrities are completely exempt from this entire conversation. And I mean REAL celebrities and Stars. You know, famous people, people with an impressive IMDB profile, not people who think they’re famous. Real celebrities are exempt, and can behave differently, just as they enjoy the same elite privileges IRL. A celebrity can tweet they just took a piss, and have 43K RTs and 88.9K faves. You and I could write a piece worthy of the Pulitzer Prize and have 20RTs and 33 Faves. When I write about conversions, numbers, and engagement I’m talking about us “regular” folks… the Celebs live in a different world. They are and have always been, outliers.)
So if you’re a regular, non-celebrity, like me, we are seeking increased engagement in exchange for our time and energy spent on Twitter. Over-tweeting not only is a time and energy expenditure we don’t need to make, but the data suggests that it leads to people either: A. Tuning us and our message out, or B. UNFOLLOWING us. The opposite of what we hope to achieve for our tweeting effort.
Ouija Boards and Social Media
It’s the same process we have with social situations IRL, we observe and follow social cues. Online, we must pay attention and follow social media cues. Otherwise we aren’t truly engaging with our audience or taking their needs and wants into consideration. Give your followers what they are looking for and they will respond positively. Serve their needs and you’ll have the engagement and the numbers you are looking to build.
Play around with your own metrics. If you tweet more, and you’re getting the same or less response to your tweets, then it’s pretty clear you are over-tweeting, and robbing yourself of a precious fixed commodity called, time.
As a relationship and business performance specialist my sole focus is helping companies and entrepreneurs increase efficiency and profitability through leveraging relationships. To be in compliance with my own code of ethics, I must practice in my own life and business what I preach, so I keep tabs on the numbers. I do run the metrics… daily. I invite you to do the same if you’re serious about monitoring your time expenditure and the cost-benefit ratio of your engagement on Twitter.
The proof is in the pudding so-to-speak, and don’t rely on a pretty pictured graphs promulgated by tweets arbitrarily proclaiming the “Top 50 Tweeters on Twitter,” or any other “Top <fill in the blank>.” Just because someone blogged about it to get the attention and retweets of people with large followings, doesn’t mean it is true. Ask where the data came from, where is this information derived from, what is the measure? I recently read a tweet that included a list ranking the Top people on Twitter to be retweeted and the rankings were ridiculous and could not be substantiated by any sort of metrics. Unless they were using creative math. Some people who made this particular list were ranked far lower than they actually should have been (they are far more retweeted than other names on the list), and by the same token, some people made the list who have VERY low rankings for retweets.
Remember not to check your scientific method at the door just because it’s social media and not academia. We need to call a spade a spade and current metrics allow us easy access to data so that we can finally compare apples to apples. Know the diamond from the cubic zirconia. Don’t be fooled by size alone, make sure it’s authentic. And remember, celebrities are exempt!
* Metrics run using the analytics platform at EngagementLabs.
** One tweet per hour does not reflect all the personalized responses to followers who have engaged with a comment or question and also does not reflect hashtag communication meant to engage an active Twitter hashtag conversation. One tweet per hour is meant only to convey the average tweet to be seen by ALL following.
If you would like to catch up with me on twitter, you can find me here: @tamaramccleary.
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