COMMENTS
Dan -
Great info!
Thanks for the research.....
I think the two biggest surprises for me were #TCOT and mom/dad vs. girl/boy.
Good stuff - thanks!
--doug--
the % of "consultants" should be higher, most "bloggers" are consultants, and they r on twitter for promotion purposes.
Great research, I appreciate the time you put in.
Unfortunately, the days of legit follower rates are over. Tweepme and other follower pyramid schemes are well underway. No easy way to judge the "worth" of a Tweeter exists. You just have to check people out and see if they bring you value. There are no algorithms or bots that can assess that for you.
Love the academic approach though! I tend to look for facts this way too.
@purplecar two responses to that comment:
1) I don't think the pyramid schemes have reached any kind of scale necessary to skew a database of over 1.6 million users.
2) ReTweets are the easiest and most effective way to measure the "value" of a Twitter user.
So if my bio includes "daddy, blogger and marketing" that would explain why I am getting so many new followers? Well that explains it then!
Are you using a standard average and comparing across all divisions? Or does each division have it's own average?
@bradley a standard average
@Dan In that instance, what's the number? It would have a relatively massive impact on the results.
This is really valuable information- thank you for posting this!
@bradley somewhere around 103: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4594/Is-22-Tweets-Per-Day-the-Optimum.aspx
Yikes, that casts some harsh light on the political section, and shows that #TCOT either follow aggressively, or are well received.
It's also interesting to see that average "guru" only has twice as many followers as the average "users"
I have been thinking about refining my bio and this confirms that I need to do it. Thank you for this research. It is very valuable.
But what if I'm a marketing blogger AND a nerd... who <3's music ;)
I already had a link and a bio, but after reading this post I went back and tweaked my bio. :) Let's see if I get some more followers!
Nice work, Dan.
Just a couple thoughts about the liberal/conservative labels:
1) How much of the early-adopter base ignored putting a political affiliation in the profile because it was pretty much assumed that you were hip, on the coasts, and liberal anyway?
2) How much of the conservative identification came about because of the specific tcot drive, and the people they drew to Twitter? Was it not an ideologically-aligned "flocking" effort?
@ike you're probably very right about that, although from a marketing perspective it doesn't reduce TCOT's effectiveness.
Remember though that correlation ≠ causation.
1. A possible explanation for conservative/liberal findings: conservatives (& perhaps other minorities) are more likely to self-identify and follow each other on Twitter.
2. Average greater number of followers for those with "#tcot" in their bio doesn't necessarily make "conservatives" a big marketing force...if it's a small echo chamber. More of a well targetted target group.
Great research! Love the marketer and entrepreneur bit! What about coaches! Consulting is out of fashion! No one wants to keep digging into problem stuff anymore!
Great article. Thanks for sharing your findings. It is interesting what we see when doing these kinds of reports. Now the question is... If we all implement a change to incorporate the most hit object mentioned below, do our follows increase or do we bring down the average? In other words, is the link to followers based on those items mentioned above or is it that the people who are affected are followed for other reasons?
Amazing research. Already applying some of your findings on my profile THANKS!
This is a wonderful exploration of the seemingly innocent Twitter bio...although I agree with some of the previous comments that have pointed out that some results could be deceiving, like the republicans being more "popular" than democrats.
What I take away from this article is the simple concept of transparency. If you want genuine followers who care about what you have to say, then just state your identity and agenda openly. You have nothing to fear if you call yourself a consultant or a father.
Also, I have found that most people follow me automatically after I follow them, so my statistics would be very inconclusive if this analysis was performed on my bio!
Thanks Dan!
It's interesting to see this kind of data - and I wonder what the reverse split would be; is there a corrolation between followed and followers that relates to these results?
Dan, It was great to meet you at Chris Brogan's IMC last week!
Thanks for this information,I'd be really interested in seeing what impact religious references have on followers. Is that information you could find for us?
Thanks!
Thanks for the analysis, Dan - I already tweeted it! :)
Great info! I didn't know that my bio could play such an integral part on the number of followers I have or don't have! I'll go tweak mine now....
It is interesting that music-related Twitter users (musicians, music bloggers) have not harnessed the power of the site or garnered as many users, as of yet. It may be because of the spammy connotations, similar to MySpace when a random band adds you regardless of your personal music interests. That being said, I think it is only a matter of time before this takes off, because I am noticing more and more music blogs (including my own!) and definitely increasing numbers of notable and independent musicians using Twitter as a communications base and to promote their material.
This is a great post - I take my followers very seriously, and take consideration when I decide who I follow. Tweeters Profile is a big part of that equation - but only PART of it.
My latest blog post explains my follow philosophy.
What's That You Tweet? I would further add that just because someone says they are a Guru or Expert does not mean they are - but by looking at their tweets, their web or blog and their followers you can get a better sense of the validity of their statement.
Thanks for sharing this great info!
@socialpmchick
your politics section is clearly for americans, so presumably so is the rest of your data, which makes it worthless to those of us who are not americans. also, i find the idea of following someone because of whats in their bio ridiculous. surely it should be for the content that you follow someone? and isnt all this just a generalisation anyway?
I appreciate your insights, and the time it must have taken to compile/analyze the data. And I also appreciate the conversation this may start about the value of one’s followers, but I’m concerned that people are viewing the above insights/thoughts as research.
For example: Self proclaimed advertising/marketing gurus & experts will be more active than the average twitterer – they will be actively tweeting and following people (presumably, some of those people will follow them back). Some of these experts even utilize software that actively goes and seeks people for them to follow… And while these experts may have more followers than average, there is no telling how meaningful those followers are due to the fact that most gurus/experts work to gather followers like the octo-mom gathers babies. Followers are a commodity you see, and if you position yourself as a social media expert, well, you can’t have just 87 followers now can you?
We can’t say that having those terms being in one’s bio doesn’t do anything negative because we don’t have the right data to make those claims…
One question is, if everyone who currently labels themselves a guru hadn’t (from the getgo), would they have more or less followers? Also would they have more or less meaningful followers/connections? I wonder if gurus/experts are missing out on potentially fantastic connections, ones that could make their offerings “tip” as it were, due to the fact that a lot of people are turned off by the puffery of calling yourself an “expert”…
I may have to blog about this :-)
@jack2point0
It almost seems to me that there's an unusual "Twitter Follower" envy going on in the online world.
It'll be more interesting over time to see what it's translating into for power users (in terms of revenue and growing customer base).
It doesn't seem all that surprising that the genuine & authentic marketers seem to have bigger followings. It's more likely because they're focused on sharing value than because of the words they use in their bio.
"Give without want before you can have." That's the mindset of the one's who will most likely win the biggest in the end.
[boldly predicts @kevindervin who only has around 162 followers currently]
Just my two cents.
Thanks for sharing your research Dan!
Thanks! Gonna go tweak my bio!
One exception to "allen bukoff": conservatives are not a minority.
Question for author: Many people prefer the word "progressive" to "liberal" or even "Democrat". Any stats on that one?
I agree with Jack's concerns. The implication of this article is that, by using certain word, followers increase. While I'm sure how you shape your bio plays an important role, it is not something in isolation. It is equally, perhaps more likely, that people who use the word "expert" in their bio are more likely to approach Twitter with goals of gaining followers. Their choice of words is related to their behavior on Twitter, which includes both what and how they post and how they approach personal network growth.
I dunno, while I like the study, I can't shake the thought that relation does not equal causation