How Do You Measure Success On Twitter?

May 21, 2012 15 Comments

I’m posing this Twitter question as a follow up to a poll I had on my recent post 10 Words Every Successful Tweeter Needs To Know. 

The poll had an excellent response and while it did in a way confirm my own thinking, it also threw up some interesting alternative thoughts.

So I thought I should share the results with you to stimulate some further discussion on what makes a successful Tweeter. Please do let me know what you think by adding your comments at the end of the post and voting in my new poll.

Firstly a look at the poll results to date.

How do you measure success on Twitter?

twitter tips

I’m not all surprised to see an overwhelming majority going for ‘Building Good Relationships’ as that is what I think Twitter, and Social Media is all about as my article had suggested.

What does interest me though is the low return on ‘Number of #FF Mentions’ and it does make me question the value of Follow Friday. When I started out on Twitter a couple of years ago the #FF mention was something that I concentrated on a great deal but which I eventually dropped as it seemed to be taking up too much time with limited effect.

I do still see a number of #FF recommendations and while I am of course always grateful for any positive mention I am wondering if it’s time is over as reflected in the poll.

I’m pleased to see ‘Number of Retweets’ in a solid second place as genuine RT’s are the lifeblood of Twitter in spreading great content and highlighting new Tweeters to those of us who might not yet have come across them. Thankfully not too many responders consider interacting with a ‘celebrity’ to be too important.

I was also interested in some of the additional suggestions added to the poll in ‘Others’.

best twitter tips

What great suggestions which I wish I had thought of and a couple of which need to be added to my 10 words!

Knowledge is such an important part of Twitter – we all can see and absorb information across all sorts of areas that we otherwise might never have come across.

Quality – Ok, not all the content we see shared is great quality but if we filter out all the noise then we can find some fantastic stuff to add to our knowledge of the world.

Interaction – This is what it’s all about to me.

So what can I conclude from this? The poll results show that while building relationships is very important to most of us, success on Twitter, as in so many other areas of life, means different things to different people and as a consequence we shouldn’t necessarily try to measure it using numbers or by comparing ourselves to other users.

It’s nice to see the number of your followers increasing and it feels good to see your own Tweets shared but to me it will always be the quality and the enduring nature of the relationships I have with other users and the joy of interacting with new and old friends that is the measure of my success.

If you are Tweeting in support of your business I would imagine that you need to take a more analytic approach so if that’s you what is your measure of success? If you are like me and just Tweet to connect, share and interact then what do you measure or indeed do you feel the need to analyse success or failure at all?

I would love to have your feedback so please let me know what you think by adding your comment below.

I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to add their vote to the poll. I do suspect that the results may have been slightly different if you had been able to vote for more than one reason to measure success so I going to run a slightly revised poll to see if I am right.

I have added a couple of the ‘Other’ suggestions and you can now vote for up to 3 choices so I would be grateful if you could take a moment to consider all your reasons and vote accordingly. It’ll be interesting to see if there is a wider spread of votes.

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  • http://twitter.com/bdorman264 Bill Dorman

    To me, I really enjoy an interactive relationship. When I reach out to someone, it’s always nice to have some kind of acknowledgment; doesn’t always happen, but nice when it does. 

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      Agreed Bill – we can only control our own actions and if someone doesn’t respond to us then it’s not something we should worry about. It’s their loss anyway :-)

  • Anntran111

    Hi Tony,

    Content is something I focus on and following because it gives my blog and the content I share to travel.  These days, I travel quite a bit so when I have time, I like to engage and share content from new friends and old friends via social media. 

    Being Tweeted by a celebrity is always fun, especially when your tweet travels for a week.ツAnn

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      Thanks for the comment Ann – it’s a delight to have feedback from someone who is a Twitter success whatever measure is used :-)

      I agree that content is vital whether tweeting or blogging as sharing or publishing poor quality content in either format won’t lead to engaging or interacting in any meaningful way. 

  • http://twitter.com/myaccesiblelife Deborah

    Being grateful as possible that I have both learned and shared something with someone else is my top priority and sometimes just to laugh a bit LOL.

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      An excellent priority Deborah and thanks for the reminder to us all that it’s supposed to fun and make us laugh from time to time too :-)

  • http://www.hemingwayheroine.blogspot.com/ Nicole

    I chose Building Relationships, Sharing Quality Knowledge and… after thinking about it for a while… Being Tweeted by a ‘celebrity’. I have a themed twitter (+blog, +tumblr) that’s all about reading, writing & publishing. So my “celebrities” are the authors that I follow. I’ve had a couple of them either RT or respond to me and in my particular world – that’s kind of a big deal. 

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      Thanks for the comment and for adding your choices Nicole. I suppose in your case ‘celebrities’ could also be described as industry experts but whatever their definition it’s clearly a success having some interaction with them.

      I’m probably a bit unfair being negative about anyone who sees being tweeted by a celeb as a success as after all, who amongst doesn’t get a thrill if it ever happens :-)

    • http://twitter.com/RecoveredLisa Lisa Neumann

       I love what you said. I do it for the same reasons (If I’m honest) I like to pretend I’m not interested in celebrity endorsement, the truth: I’d love it.

  • http://twitter.com/ellies58 Eleanor Jodway

    I have to agree Tony.  The relationships You build are paramount!  It is after all “Social” media.  And it gives Us the greatest opportunities EVER, to become good friends with people, that in RL We would likely not.  My 2 BFF’s from Twitter, @terrinakamura and @grattongirl, are Worlds apart.  And, I feel privileged to call both of these Wonderful Ladies, My Friends!  Would I have ever met them without Twitter…I believe not!  And that My friend, would have been a tragedy!                        
    I am sorry to see that the #FF mentions are becoming a thing of the past.  As You know, I still do them.  I do not care if I get them back, but they are My way of saying….”You matter to Me!  I consider You an asset to Twitter/My Timeline, and I want to tell people that; so they don’t miss out on the experience of knowing You”!
    And, just as an afterthought….I try diligently to reply to each person who addresses Me, one on one.  Though this may cause some litter in My Followers streams, I think of it as being respectful of the relationships I have built with people.  In RL, I would not address someone who spoke to me, in a Group format.  And I will admit, if I address someone personally, I find it in poor taste if they do not respond.  That’s not to say, each and every time.  I understand that people have lives, and many have 100′s of Thousands of followers, but a response one in awhile is proper etiquette in My opinion!  As a rule, if someone does not say something back once out of every 5-6 times I’ve addressed them; I consider they are not worth the follow.  I don’t follow celebrities for this reason, and I try to follow, Real, kind, and Engaging persons only!  :)

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      Thank you ever so much for your thoughtful comment Ellie, I think it’s probably better than the post :-)

      You are right that Twitter has become a great connector bringing together people who would never otherwise have met and leading to many life long friendships, I would say that is a success by any measure. I agree that we should try to respond individually to people who contact us and while I do try I’m not as good as it as you are – time is always the great enemy.

      When it comes to the #FF’s I do very much appreciate yours and most of the others I still see as they are clearly genuine and the sentiment you express behind yours is to me very much valued. What I don’t miss are the hordes of habitual #FF mentions from people who you didn’t really know who seemed to churn them out just because they felt they had to. Maybe the Friday habit will continue now that it’s more genuine.

      Your thoughts on celebrities are interesting and I know what you mean. But there must be some ‘real, kind and engaging’ celebs out there who wish they could play like the rest of us on Twitter without generating so much ‘noise’ every time they Tweet. If any of them are reading this maybe they should get in touch with me to do a guest post to put their side of the story!

       Great comment Ellie – Happy Tweeting :-)

  • http://twitter.com/Paulynesian Big Paul

    I truly enjoyed this read.  I was on #rbchat today and realized that there ARE some wonderful “interactions” out there and it’s still very exciting for me.  Building relationships and sharing are my main reason for “social media” adventures.  Each day my streamline and Timeline takes me on a new adventure: humor, travel, knowledge, news, politics, science, and many more.  IN the past year my #Twittercation (my may of combining it with Education) has made me an addict in my small way.  

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

       Many thanks for your thoughtful comment Paul. I’m glad you are enjoying your social media journey – long may it continue :-)

  • http://twitter.com/Write_A_NewSong Philip Quintas

    Tony, I have been on Twitter for the purpose of meeting people and developing relationships and it’s great to see that I’m not alone on my journey! The whole “I’ll follow you, you follow me” (blindly) thing has never had much appeal to me…I want to get to know other individuals, not just build up large numbers.

    • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

      Many thanks for taking the time to leave your comment Philip. It should all be about connecting with ‘real’ people although it can sometimes be hard to find the genuine ones amongst all the noise! Thanks for following and sharing the post, following you back now and delighted to have connected with you :-)

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