I finally had the pleasure of meeting Sean Power at SXSW (he's the guy in the orange hat). He's an example of one of my loose ties strengthened through online social networks. It's also an example of how online social networks can connect you to people in your professional area who may not have met and open the door to valuable informal learning.
Let me explain.
I connected with Sean via Twitter when I was researching tools and techniques for listening and ROI. I asked a question on Twitter and he answered. He introduced me (virtually via Twitter) to Alistair Croll, co-author of their forthcoming book called "Watching Websites," a deep dive into web metrics and monitoring.
I've been thinking about how you measure what your organization does on Twitter. Given Sean's and Alistair's knowledge in this area, we engaged in a couple of really useful "micro" chats on Twitter about different measurement tools. Alistair suggested a taxonomy. So, one thing led to another and we starting batting around some ideas, along with my very smart colleague, Rachel Weidinger
A disclaimer. If you're looking at measuring or improving your strategy via Twitter, you'd start with your objectives first and identify key metrics. Then look at the tools. I'm starting with the tools because I want to better understand the options. Later, I hope to circle back and look at the tools in context with actual Twitter use by a nonprofit (anyone have any great stories?)
Here's a first draft and by no means complete:
Who's Talking
- Individual (a single Twitter user)
Ranking: Follower, following, message volume
Behavior: When do they Tweet?
Relationships on Twitter: Who do they know/interact with
Relationships off Twitter: Whose influence bleeds past Twitter?
- Aggregate (a Twitter user's followers or friends)
Scoring: Most/Least Active
Social Network Analysis: What are the relationships between people who I follow or friends
What are they Saying?
Volume: Line graphs, Ranking, Hashtags
Sentiment: Language parsing (tag clouds)
Keyword association: Topics
Where are they saying it?
Geomaps
When are they saying it?
Trends over time
Seasonality, Outside influences,
Building up/ Wearing Away of relationships
So what tools are out there? What can they measure w/Twitter? We got as far as listing the places where Twitter tools are aggregated:
Twitter Apps Wiki
Twitter Apps That Give You Insight
WeareMedia Toolbox: Twitter
Laurie Lee Dooley's Delicious List
Brian Solis: Twitter Tools for Community
ComMetrics: 100 Best Twitter Tools
The next step is identify the best ones for measurement. I'd love some nonprofit examples. How are you measuring or tracking your Twitter strategy? What tools are you using? How are you applying the insights you glean?
We left click through tracking (like bit.ly) off the original list. Digging that CoTweet has that as an integrated feature.
Posted by: Rachel Weidinger | March 26, 2009 at 10:37 AM
some great links I need to check out here because it wouldn't hurt to get some good results with measurement tools out there.
Posted by: JustinSMV | March 26, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Slide 53 about relative attention time is downright scary.
Posted by: Nathan Ketsdever | March 29, 2009 at 08:53 PM