Most daring title ever, I think - and I've had a few so far
Starting with a few disclaimers before people try to bite my head off and spoil a good case:
- I used my stats from dlvr.it
- I picked new blog posts being announced by people themselves
- I compared Umair Haque, Tim Kastelle, Capgemini and myself
- I'm comparing direct reach, extended reach, clicks and retweets to Twitter network size
- Clicks form the very basis of my argument. I know, I know, but a click is the closest you can get to (measuring) a blog post
who do. This post is meant as a case-study and I'm trying to make a point so the figure-fetisjists (like myself) can have another go at quantifying quality as much as possible without actually taking the quality out
Having said that, here's what I did.
I use dlvr.it for posting tweets and blog posts, for my own blog posts as well as for others, like my company's. Some of my posts I also post on my company's blog. Not all, as I don't see all of them fit for that. Out here I'm much more present than when I represent my company
Dlvr.it is a very handy tool that gives you location, clicks and retweets of something you posted. So, for each post, I can see how many clicks it got, from which location and application clicks were made, and who retweeted a tweet, as well as the direct, indirect and average reach a post got. More than enough stats to play with...
After a while, something strange occurred to me: there was actually a big difference between the figures my posts got when posted on my own site, and when posted on my company's site. Of course my site is much better-looking than my company's site and has a great lot more functionality and 'goodies', but the posts were (almost always) exactly the same in content and title - and that's what makes them perfectly comparable
Twitter network size
@Capgemini has 3,800 followers currently, I have 540
With those figures in mind, it's easy to calculate that my company's network is 7 times as big as my own
That would easily lead to the assumption that my company's blog posts get 7 times as many clicks
#Wrong
Average direct and extended reach
On average, blog posts from my company have a direct reach of 2,500 people, and an extended reach of 7,000 people. Mine have a direct reach of 625 people, and an extended reach of 1,800 people.With those figures in mind, it's easy to calculate that my company's network is 4 times as big as my own
That would easily lead to the assumption that my company's blog posts get 4 times as many clicks
#Wrong
Average (re)tweets
On average, blog posts from my company get 10 (re)tweets. Mine get 4.
With those figures in mind, it's easy to calculate that my company's network is 2.5 times as big as my own
That would easily lead to the assumption that my company's blog posts get 2.5 times as many clicks
#Wrong
Average clicks
I could reveal the secret straight away, but like to keep you in suspense a bit longer.
Let's just do some more assumptions based on the figures calculated above. You do know how I feel about assumptions, I hope, but these are good assumptions: we're going to verify them all the way, right away.
My company has 7 times as many followers as I do, a reach that is 4 times as big, and gets 2.5 times as many tweets for a post. So, assuming away, my company's posts would get in between 2.5 and 7 times as many clicks as mine. Right?
#Wrong
Here it is:
On average, blog posts from my company get 41 clicks. Mine get 65.
With those figures in mind, it's easy to calculate that my network is 50% stronger than my company's
#Right
Example
My biggest post got 165 clicks, with 11 tweets, a direct reach of 1,885 and an extended reach of 8,739
My company's biggest post got 97 clicks, with 11 tweets, a direct reach of 3,850 and an extended reach of 8,652
So, my company's network has a reach that is 5 times as big as mine. But their blog posts only get retweeted 2.5 times as much as mine. That's an indication that the bigger the reach, the weaker the ties: not every follower is in it for the attention. I suspect some are just following my company 'out of support' so to say
And of course, their blog posts only get 2/3rd of the clicks that my blog posts get. Even if I put my posts on their blog, they get half the clicks or even less. That last bit is distorting the picture a bit, as I only put (some of) my finest posts on my company's blog
My conclusion: my network is way stronger, dense, close, tight-nit, interesting and attracting attention than my company's. Way. It's at least 150% as strong (mere clicks), but possibly 1,000% (clicks multiplied by Twitter network size ratio), or anything in between, it depends on how you measure
What do you think? I'm really anxious to get your opinion on this!
Now, on to Tim Kastelle and Umair Haque. I ambushed them on Twitter, waiting for them to announce a new blog post. Yes, #disclaimer this is going to be based on one blog post for them only so here they are: Tim's post and Umair's post
Umair has 27,600 followers, Tim has 850
I just counted the (re)tweets, Umair got 425. That's huge. Tim got 6 tweets
According to dlvr.it, Umair got 16 clicks, and Tim 26
Needless to say, I'm lost here. 16 clicks is nothing for someone like Umair. Compared to 425 tweets, it's inconceivably little. It would mean that over 90% of Umair's Twitter followers mindlessly retweet his blog posts without even clicking on them? That really can't be true of course! I hope Umair can help out here...
In the meantime, I'll look for another "click-tracker" and might update this post later. As for now, I'm off to the beach with the family
Update April 5th 11:05 AM CET:
Back now and having recovered from Trance Energy 2010, here's the final math:
This post got 206 clicks and has now "run dry" I think. Direct reach of 1,200 and extended of 275,000. That last is because @Twitter_Tips (175K followers) picked it up which led to an extra 17 tweets, and 11 clicks! There's another blog post in that, of course, as that's exactly what I mean with the retweet-to-click ratio inverting at some point when a person turns into a brand or organisation (see comment below). Using my own Twitter Search tool, the original @Twitter_Tips tweet triggered a few automated retweets, like you can see here (check the seconds in the timestamp):
2010-04-03 15:02:37 Nice Post: Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 (via @Twitter_Tips ) sahilmalhan (Sahil Malhan)
2010-04-03 15:00:45 RT @Twitter_Tips: Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 datalore_tv (Datalore)
2010-04-03 15:00:29 RT @Twitter_Tips: Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 tashamiel (Tasha Sefrida Dimas)
2010-04-03 15:00:20 Twitter_Tips: Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 : Twitter_Tips: Twitter netwo.. http://bit.ly/ckIgwq RTSamPolanco (Sammy Polanco)
2010-04-03 15:00:19 RT @Twitter_Tips: Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 lettersandessay (Ley Marie)
2010-04-03 14:59:41 Twitter network strength calculated - for real http://j.mp/dhs830 Twitter_Tips (Tips, Tools, Status)
