How to Use Twitter Grader to Be a Better Social Media Marketer

Since it was launched last fall, over 1.5 million people have graded their profiles using Twitter Grader.

But what does a Twitter Grade actually mean -- and how can you use it to improve how you use Twitter?

Here's the scoop: Your Twitter Grade is a measure of how well you're using Twitter as a marketing tool. The number is a percentile score based on how effectively you're following best Twitter-for-business practices, compared to all the other people that have been graded.

To give you a better sense of how you can improve your use of Twitter as a marketing tool, here's a breakdown of a few questions Twitter Grader asks when grading your profile (as well as some of the thinking behind them):

1) How many followers do you have? Reach is important, and Twitter Grader puts some weight on the number of people following you. Offering interesting content and interacting often online will get you more followers. Also, those who have a lot of followers are frequently thought-leaders in the space.

2) What is the power and influence of those people following you? Choose your friends wisely, and build a network of people who have large networks themselves. To have influential people follow you is powerful. 

3) How many people are you following? If you are following more people than are following you, it reduces your grade a bit. This "poor ratio" often (although, not always) implies that a person is following too many people at once, instead of letting organic relationships naturally develop. Remember to build your network organically, step-by-step.

4) How often do you update and interact with your network? Being an active member of the Twitter community definitely gets you points. Remember to consistently interact with your network. However, tweeting excessively without reason can hurt your grade. 

5) How often does your network engage with you? Twitter Grader thinks very highly of people who are tweeted at, cited in the context of a tweet or retweeted. To have people interact or reference you shows authority. Give people a reason to talk about you. 

What do you think? Are there other best-practices Twitter Grader should be assessing? How do you use Twitter for marketing?

Webinar: Twitter for Marketing and PR

Comments

Posted by Rebecca Corliss on Tue, Mar 31, 2009 @ 07:38 AM