The Big List Blog
Measuring ROI for Twitter
Twitter has increasingly become more important tool in the corporate social media toolbox. The Blog Council’s internal Twitter directory has 36 listings. The Home Depot recently demonstrated how a brand can connect with its customers during a natural disaster like a hurricane. And so on and so forth.
As a tool matures as a viable option, the inevitable question comes up – what’s the ROI? Here are two potential answers:
1. Angela Maiers of Maiers Educational Services recently wrote about what she calls the Twitter Engagement Formula. Rightly so, she demphasizes the importance of sheer number of tweets in favor of stronger engagement in conversations. Here is how Angela describes the Formula:
Share Resources (70) – Successful learning in the 21st Century is not what you know, but what you can share, so 70 % of my Twittertime is spent sharing others voices, opinions, and tools.
Collaborations (20) – 20% of my Tweets are directly responding, connecting, collaboration, and co-creating with like-minded Twitter colleagues. From these important tweets, lifelong professional and personal relationships have been forged.
Chit-Chat (10) 10% of my Twittertalk is “chit-chat-how’s-your-hat” stuff. It is in these “trivial” details shared about working out, favorite movies, politics, and life in general that I connect with others as a human being. These simple chit chats are what have allowed me to know that I am never alone, and there is support whenever, wherever, and however I need it!
While Angela describes the Twitter Engagement Formula for an individual, there is no question that it can be adapted for use in a corporate setting as a guideline for engagement.
2. New tools for measuring Twitter influence are also starting to mature as well. Some of them include:
(Tip of the hat to Glen, who suggested these)
Anyone have other tools to share?
I agree 100 percent. The chit-chat is about right, 10 to 20 percent tops, but when you mention Twitter never makes you feel alone and in a supportive environment, my Devil’s Advocate asks what you have when Twitter is down or when a power outage strikes your ISP.
Twitter is a great collaborative tool, but should not be a replacement for a hug or a handshake.
Thanks for the tip on Monitter. I looked at it, and don’t like it. You should try TweetGrid at http://tweetgrid.com which enables the same concept but with more grid options and the ability to send outgoing tweets.
One way to measure your influence on Twitter is to post an image to http://twitpic.com/ since they do show number of views.
Tweet the link.
When you go to your link on Twitpic you will see the number of views.
Check back at the same URL later to see how it gets popular through viral postings. Visitors can share the image, post it to their Web sites and leave comments as well.
http://twitter.com/CharlieKalech
Michael-what a great question, and a critical one to ask with any new tool or application. I agree with Ari that Twitter should/could not take the place for an in person smile or handshake, but it is pretty darn close!
I have recently connected in person with several of my Twitter Friends(Tweet Up!) and our work was more productive and powerful because of the online dialogue.
Thanks for sharing the Twitter Formula and the great tools for engaging fully in Twitter-it is a great place to be!
I think Angela’s percentages seem about right. You have to devote a fair amount of time on Twitter to your social networking efforts. You can’t properly network if you’re not willing to engage with others on Twitter. I really enjoy the links to the tools you listed, especially Twitter Grader! Thanks for posting!
Ari, thanks for the pointer to TweetGrid. I just discovered http://TwitrRatr.com today. It loops helpful because it breaks out search results according to sentiment. Rough numbers, obviously, but potentially a great triage tool.
Michael:
This is a great question. How about measuring web references from the various “tinyurl” services. Right now many of us cater to google to get search pointing to us. For certain viral activities, the traffic may come from these links created by various microblogs pointing to blogs within our websites.
Good Lord, all those rules on how Twitter *should* be used annoy me to no end. To those who might want to know how I use Twitter, here are my thoughts.
Ari pointed out this article to me, since at some point I gave him some heat for his “formula”.
Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately we don’t have tools yet for advanced filtering, which makes really following/listening to anything over 500 impossible. I hope more people adapt the 70-20-10 formula. Twitter will be a lot better communications medium with that.