One of the most interesting and sensational aspects of Twitter are its mega accounts: Twitter accounts with huge numbers of followers. These days mega accounts have anywhere from 1 million to 3 million followers, but in the future they will boast much larger followings. Is a Twitter account with 10 million followers around the corner? Absolutely! How about 100 million or more? But as with many things in life, it isn’t just size that matters. What is the use of millions of followers if most of them are not really listening? Its not just quantity that matters, it is also quality. In the last few months Singularity Hub has had the privilege of having its stories retweeted by three mega Twitter accounts, accounts with roughly 1,000,000 followers. What have we learned about the power, or lack thereof, of these massive Twitter accounts and what does it all mean for the future of the Twitter communication paradigm?
In the last few months @techcrunch (1,000,000+ followers), @tonyrobbins (1,323,000+ followers), and @timoreilly (1,087,000+ followers) have each retweeted one of our stories. So what came of these massive tweets? Did enormous numbers of followers read the tweet and subsequently follow the link to our story here at Singularity Hub? The answer, at least to us, has been a surprising disappointment. After reviewing our traffic logs we can attribute no more than 5,000 hits to our site from any one of these mega account tweets (this includes hits from retweets as well!). From an account of roughly 1,000,000 followers no more than 5,000 of those followers, or roughly one half of a percent of them, are likely to click on the tweet. In our experience 5,000 would actually be on the upper limit considering retweets were involved, with about 3,000 being more likely.
Thanks for the retweet Tony!
One might also expect that being picked up by a major account such as @tonyrobbins might result in large numbers of new followers following your own Twitter account. But again the truth is disappointing. Our data shows that getting retweeted by a mega account only results in perhaps a few dozen new followers to your own Twitter account.
How can we explain that such a low number of supposed followers actually read and click through on the information in a tweet? There are several contributing factors to explain this, but here are what I think are the major ones:
1. Large numbers of these followers aren’t really followers at all
Many of these so called followers are robot accounts automatically following all sorts of Twitter accounts. Other followers are real people, but they are following so many different Twitter accounts that they don’t really tune in seriously to most or all of their incoming tweets. For whatever reason, either they are using their account for self promotion rather than to get information or they have long given up on using their account, lots of followers are simply ghosts with nobody there to actually read the tweet.
2. Even dedicated followers will click on a small number of tweets
Even when counting the followers that are true, dedicated followers that really want to read the tweets, statisically speaking we can only expect these followers to click on maybe 10% of the tweets they see. It is just not practical that all or most of the tweets will be of sufficient interest for a real follower to click on them and read them to their fullest. When we go to a newspaper, or a blog, or a Twitter feed, we don’t read every single story. We skim through the list of choices and only focus on the one or two stories out of dozens in the data feed that interest us the most, then we move on to the rest of our lives.
Information Overload!
Despite all of the hype and excitement around Twitter we can see that Twitter is currently a very low penetration medium for distributing information. Mega accounts with more than 1,000,000 followers aren’t nearly the powerhouses over people’s information lives that many of us may have expected them to be. But before we call the game over and discount Twitter and its mega accounts we need to consider that things can – and will – change.
The Twitter service is just in its infancy and we can expect the information paradigm that it represents to evolve rapidly and significantly in the coming years. In fact focusing only on Twitter the company is too short sighted of a way to look at all of this. Twitter is a company, but the paradigm of sending short messages of information to legions of followers who can then re-send those messages (ie retweet them) to others is a theme that is bigger than the company itself. Twitter the company may come and go, succeed or fail, but the paradigm itself will live on and evolve. Even now an entire ecosystem of thousands of companies is building up around not just Twitter, but around the idea of the realtime exchange of bits of information.
In the coming years, whether it be on the Twitter platform or some other framework from another company, or even from a distributed open source collective , we can expect many of the major problems with today’s Twitter to be solved. For one thing, we can expect that there will indeed be massive Twitter accounts whose followers are much more committed to absorbing the information beyond the 0.5% witnessed today. Take for example official government Twitter accounts in which perhaps the entire citizenry of a nation can be expected to read a tweet that is critical to national security, pride, or interest. Would more than 0.5% of citizens in the United States follow and then read the tweet of a government sponsored account meant to distribute breaking news of terrorist threats or viral outbreaks? I think so.
Not only can we expect certain accounts to have more dedicated followers, but we can expect tools to manage the overwhelming stream of information coursing into our lives- tweets, blogs, feeds, images – to become more sophisticated and efficient at helping us to sort through all of the mess. The most important and relevant information to each of us will bubble up above the rest. Information more and more will be disseminated to the right people who actually care about that information enough to click on it and read it. This contrasts strongly with today’s situation in which we are overwhelmed with huge streams of information that are too massive and diverse to manage effectively.
Information is coming at us from every direction at levels far beyond normal human capacity to absorb. And yet even as tools get better at helping us to deal with today’s information overload, the influx of new information into our lives will only multiply even further, making the problem ever more difficult to manage. Paradigm shifts in information access and management are happening ever faster to compensate. Are Twitter mega accounts and Twitter itself already a dying paradigm in this ever evolving race, or are Twitter and its mega accounts going to maintain or even increase their relevance by evolving along with everything else?
Comments
I’ve noticed a lot of the media posing questions about what, exactly, is Twitter good for? Recently Paull Carr at TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/27/im-a-writer-not-a-twitter/) posted that he was quitting twitter, and I completely agree. I had a twitter for a while, and it felt good to get followers. In the end, though, most of them were there because they were the type who followed lots of people, and I had no real “connections”. I recently deleted my Twitter account and am going back to blogging. However, the audience I once had at an old social network is now completely dissolved, as none of them followed me off to twitter-land, and I don’t blame them. I didn’t give anything meaty for them to read, you can’t in 140 characters!
I have seem a lot of blogs go “twitroll”, where the blog simply becomes a collection of tweets pushed through to the blog. Not only is it ugly, it’s hard to read, and uninteresting to read.
I predicted a couple of years ago that Twitter would never hit it big, and I guess I was wrong. I still think, however, that Twitter is NOT the revolution we are looking for in social media. I think that has yet to come – it brought the speed, now someone needs a way to combine that with bringing back the CONTENT.
I’ve noticed a lot of the media posing questions about what, exactly, is Twitter good for? Recently Paull Carr at TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/27/im-a-writer-not-a-twitter/) posted that he was quitting twitter, and I completely agree. I had a twitter for a while, and it felt good to get followers. In the end, though, most of them were there because they were the type who followed lots of people, and I had no real “connections”. I recently deleted my Twitter account and am going back to blogging. However, the audience I once had at an old social network is now completely dissolved, as none of them followed me off to twitter-land, and I don’t blame them. I didn’t give anything meaty for them to read, you can’t in 140 characters!
I have seem a lot of blogs go “twitroll”, where the blog simply becomes a collection of tweets pushed through to the blog. Not only is it ugly, it’s hard to read, and uninteresting to read.
I predicted a couple of years ago that Twitter would never hit it big, and I guess I was wrong. I still think, however, that Twitter is NOT the revolution we are looking for in social media. I think that has yet to come – it brought the speed, now someone needs a way to combine that with bringing back the CONTENT.
I wonder about Twitter anyway. I made an account, but don’t really use it. Information overload says it. I tend to follow a single persons only, if they I’d established some sort of personal relation to them or their work, maybe an artist, maybe an online friend, or if their information is extremely interesting all the time.
If something interests me, I actively look for info myself, I don’t check hundreds of people’s personal accounts regularily to maybe find something by coincidence that might interest me.
If a topic really interests me, I prefer forums, because there are a lot of people contributing directly to the topic and it’s more efficient than checking out lots of individual accounts for news that might interest me.
Just my personal view at the moment.
I wonder about Twitter anyway. I made an account, but don’t really use it. Information overload says it. I tend to follow a single persons only, if they I’d established some sort of personal relation to them or their work, maybe an artist, maybe an online friend, or if their information is extremely interesting all the time.
If something interests me, I actively look for info myself, I don’t check hundreds of people’s personal accounts regularily to maybe find something by coincidence that might interest me.
If a topic really interests me, I prefer forums, because there are a lot of people contributing directly to the topic and it’s more efficient than checking out lots of individual accounts for news that might interest me.
Just my personal view at the moment.
Regardless, the on/off switch is the most subscribed service in modern human existance.
Before reading your blog, I ran my own little test against my own network of 247 followers, and got a 1.2% response rate. Your comments are invited. http://endymionsystems.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-anybody-listening.html
Before reading your blog, I ran my own little test against my own network of 247 followers, and got a 1.2% response rate. Your comments are invited. http://endymionsystems.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-anybody-listening.html
One half of one percent is pretty standard return in marketing. The most popular tweets probably get around 2%. Occasionally there will be a big hit. The trick is to get a mega account to retweet an offer for something like a cool $20 S.H. T-shirt. That’s $10,000 in revenue for a few seconds of marketing effort.
Twitter accounts in theory should do better than marketing statistics however, because you are not broadcasting to a random audience. In theory you are broadcasting to a highly targeted audience that actively wants to see what you have to say. Sadly, the data shows that a twitter account does not perform much better than a random marketing audience.
One half of one percent is pretty standard return in marketing. The most popular tweets probably get around 2%. Occasionally there will be a big hit. The trick is to get a mega account to retweet an offer for something like a cool $20 S.H. T-shirt. That’s $10,000 in revenue for a few seconds of marketing effort.
Twitter accounts in theory should do better than marketing statistics however, because you are not broadcasting to a random audience. In theory you are broadcasting to a highly targeted audience that actively wants to see what you have to say. Sadly, the data shows that a twitter account does not perform much better than a random marketing audience.
I’d imagine that it’s still a targeted audience, but people don’t have the time to be such avid consumers of the deluge information. It’s too easy to waste hours upon hours cycling through your network of tweets.
It’s hard to say if this is merely a function of the ecosystem of tweets vs the rest of the stuff in peoples’ lives or simply not the best design for how the information is distributed and consumed. Perhaps the process of opening a link isn’t streamlined enough to sway those who deal with information overload by saying “i might have clicked it, but I’m keeping myself from being distracted”.
Like you say, Twitter may come and go, but the desire/need for nuggets of communication will stick around. Certainly it does a lot of things right .. but there certainly are pitfalls with respect to theoretical expectations.
Really you should use Analytics to measure the power of any account’s followers. For example, our top tweets get over 22,000 clicks (though the average is *much* lower), and we are consistently near the top of this list: http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/list.asp?l=100&
Really you should use Analytics to measure the power of any account’s followers. For example, our top tweets get over 22,000 clicks (though the average is *much* lower), and we are consistently near the top of this list: http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/list.asp?l=100&
I couldn’t agree more with information overload. Directed tweets per the industry you’re interested in adds to the usefullness of twitter.
I couldn’t agree more with information overload. Directed tweets per the industry you’re interested in adds to the usefullness of twitter.
I think this answer would apply to most people’s questions, so I will post it again:
I am very sure of the traffic that can be attributed to these tweets because at the time our website was small enough that our traffic was such that we could only expect a few hundred hits per story naturally. Hence, when the total traffic for a story after one of these tweets spiked to about 5,000 hits or so, I could attribute nearly 100% of the resulting hits from the mega account tweet and retweets and passing around that originated from that tweet, minus a few hundred hits or so.
Basically, no analysis was made or needed. I simply looked at the logs for how much traffic these stories got from the moment they were tweeted by the mega accounts, which turned out to be on the order of 5,000 hits, and minus a few hundred hits or so, it ALL can be attributed one way or another as being a result of the tweet from the mega account, regardless of whether the logs say it is coming from twitter or elsewhere.
I think this answer would apply to most people’s questions, so I will post it again:
I am very sure of the traffic that can be attributed to these tweets because at the time our website was small enough that our traffic was such that we could only expect a few hundred hits per story naturally. Hence, when the total traffic for a story after one of these tweets spiked to about 5,000 hits or so, I could attribute nearly 100% of the resulting hits from the mega account tweet and retweets and passing around that originated from that tweet, minus a few hundred hits or so.
Basically, no analysis was made or needed. I simply looked at the logs for how much traffic these stories got from the moment they were tweeted by the mega accounts, which turned out to be on the order of 5,000 hits, and minus a few hundred hits or so, it ALL can be attributed one way or another as being a result of the tweet from the mega account, regardless of whether the logs say it is coming from twitter or elsewhere.
well if the average for these articles was a few hundred … and these mega-accounts brought in ~5000, isn’t that a significant increase? Of course, tempered against the new twitter followers you gained, that might not be very encouraging.
And of course, I wouldn’t doubt the content itself had an impact as well. Perhaps if there were an article titled “Transhumanists create Artificial Intelligence that only knows peace” (as much as that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense), I’d bet tweets by mega accounts would get a lot of hits.
I think it would be interesting to see *Twitter’s* stats with respect to mega accounts and their networks of followers. How many really are idle? How many of those followers actually click on articles from their network? What is *that* percentage of clicks in the context of all possible clicks they could have made? How long does it take a tweet to make it around to as much of the network as it likely will? How many of the followers of mega accounts would follow an account in a tweet of a mega account, if that new twitter account didn’t have the same number of followers? etc etc.
A couple of things missing I would have loved included.
How were you determining what was Twitter traffic and what was not? If you were basing it solely off of a Twitter.com url referral that is only about 25% of the traffic. The other 75% of traffic is going to show up as direct traffic since most use Twitter clients, either desktop or phone.
Don’t forget to include that most of the followers for those particular “mega” accounts are extremely new accounts that may have just signed up and never came back to Twitter. This is mostly due in part because they are on the Twitter “Suggested user” list.
A couple of things missing I would have loved included.
How were you determining what was Twitter traffic and what was not? If you were basing it solely off of a Twitter.com url referral that is only about 25% of the traffic. The other 75% of traffic is going to show up as direct traffic since most use Twitter clients, either desktop or phone.
Don’t forget to include that most of the followers for those particular “mega” accounts are extremely new accounts that may have just signed up and never came back to Twitter. This is mostly due in part because they are on the Twitter “Suggested user” list.
.5% CT is about the same as half-decent PPC, so I wouldn’t complain about that.
More importantly, how did this traffic compare to your other traffic? What’s your highest source? Where did Twitter rank next to the rest? This article is well-meaning, thank you for writing it; but there’s no context.
5,000 views is a lot for most people, mega-sites excluded.
.5% CT is about the same as half-decent PPC, so I wouldn’t complain about that.
More importantly, how did this traffic compare to your other traffic? What’s your highest source? Where did Twitter rank next to the rest? This article is well-meaning, thank you for writing it; but there’s no context.
5,000 views is a lot for most people, mega-sites excluded.
This is a really interesting article, thanks for taking the time to look at the data then write it up.
I don’t think this is too surprising when you look at global internet click through rates. I’ve been retweeted many times by people with 1M+ followers (@agent_m, @adventuregirl, others). I think it’s important to note that their followers aren’t a captive audience, they are “potential impressions”. That is to say, assuming even 3/4 are real people and not bots, there is not guarantee that they will actually see the tweet from the mega-tweeter. Many variables…they aren’t online, they follow so many people themselves they don’t see everything, etc.
I think that’s my long winded way of saying, a .5% CT isn’t all that bad, and is to be expected with RTs.
Great article, thanks for putting up real world examples. I’ll push “submit comment” then tweet this for sure.
This is a really interesting article, thanks for taking the time to look at the data then write it up.
I don’t think this is too surprising when you look at global internet click through rates. I’ve been retweeted many times by people with 1M+ followers (@agent_m, @adventuregirl, others). I think it’s important to note that their followers aren’t a captive audience, they are “potential impressions”. That is to say, assuming even 3/4 are real people and not bots, there is not guarantee that they will actually see the tweet from the mega-tweeter. Many variables…they aren’t online, they follow so many people themselves they don’t see everything, etc.
I think that’s my long winded way of saying, a .5% CT isn’t all that bad, and is to be expected with RTs.
Great article, thanks for putting up real world examples. I’ll push “submit comment” then tweet this for sure.
Could it be that it also has a lot to do with how many people the followers are following? I don’t follow any of the mega-accounts because I have people in my network that do and RT the interesting stuff. I can do this because I follow people I know will do this, so that’s one complicating factor in your analysis.
The other complicating factor is that you can’t know how many times one of their links has been retweeted. Different clients will RT different things in different ways, sometimes people RT one of the secondary or tertiary RTs. So the number of clicks you’re attributing to them may be small. You didn’t say whether or not you saw a bump in overall traffic, from all sources. Did you see any change in traffic at all?
I am very sure of the traffic that can be attributed to these tweets because at the time our traffic was such that we could only expect a few hundred hits per story. Hence, when the total traffic for a story after one of these tweets spiked to about 5,000 hits or so, I could attribute nearly 100% of the resulting hits from the mega account tweet and retweets and passing around that originated from that tweet, minus a few hundred hits or so.
That makes sense to me. What I was trying to get at was that number of followers is a bad metric because you don’t know the signal to noise background those tweets are showing up in in all the followers accounts.
Your points about most of the followers not really being followers is probably apt. If you consider the extraordinarily high turnover for twitter, it’s certainly a big factor.
Maybe, just maybe, we can convince the marketroids that Twitter is bad for marketing after all and they’ll all go away and leave us alone again.
Could it be that it also has a lot to do with how many people the followers are following? I don’t follow any of the mega-accounts because I have people in my network that do and RT the interesting stuff. I can do this because I follow people I know will do this, so that’s one complicating factor in your analysis.
The other complicating factor is that you can’t know how many times one of their links has been retweeted. Different clients will RT different things in different ways, sometimes people RT one of the secondary or tertiary RTs. So the number of clicks you’re attributing to them may be small. You didn’t say whether or not you saw a bump in overall traffic, from all sources. Did you see any change in traffic at all?
I am very sure of the traffic that can be attributed to these tweets because at the time our traffic was such that we could only expect a few hundred hits per story. Hence, when the total traffic for a story after one of these tweets spiked to about 5,000 hits or so, I could attribute nearly 100% of the resulting hits from the mega account tweet and retweets and passing around that originated from that tweet, minus a few hundred hits or so.
That makes sense to me. What I was trying to get at was that number of followers is a bad metric because you don’t know the signal to noise background those tweets are showing up in in all the followers accounts.
Your points about most of the followers not really being followers is probably apt. If you consider the extraordinarily high turnover for twitter, it’s certainly a big factor.
Maybe, just maybe, we can convince the marketroids that Twitter is bad for marketing after all and they’ll all go away and leave us alone again.