How do you know if all your work to build a Twitter following is paying off? When it comes to what you’re really trying to accomplish on Twitter, the bottom line is “influence.” In other words, do people listen to what you have to say, and do they follow your recommendations? If the answer is yes, then you have influence. Why does that matter? If you have influence, you’re driving traffic. Sometimes that traffic is to 3rd-party content, and sometimes it’s to your site – and sometime it results in making you some cash. So the truth is, influence = money.
But how do you know your level of influence? Well, of course you can look at how many hits you’re getting from Twitter, and you can see retweets of your posts. That will give you some idea of whether or not you’re influencing your followers. It’s only part of the picture though, and it’s difficult to take that information and set meaningful goals. After all, how do you set a goal without a benchmark? If only there was a tool you could use that would measure your Twitter influence, compare it with that of others on Twitter, and give you numbers you could use to set targets. The good news is there are a few such tools! Which one is right for you? That might be a hard question to answer. As there are wide variations in how each one works and the results you’ll see, which tool you use will come down to personal preference. To help in making the decision, here is a rundown of the top 4 Twitter influence measurement tools:
Because Klout is integrated into some other Twitter tools, such as CoTweet, it is considered by many to be the leader in this sector. Klout will give you a score, from 1-100, based on 25 different measurement criteria. The score represents both the size and strength of a person’s sphere of influence on Twitter. Higher scores represent a wider and stronger sphere of influence. The size of this sphere is calculated by measuring true reach (engaged followers and friends vs. spam bots, dead accounts, etc.). Strength of influence is calculated by tracking interactions across your social graph to determine the likelihood of someone listening to or acting upon any specific message. A nice feature of Klout is that it places you into one of four categories (Connector, Persona, Casual, or Climber) and gives you a snapshot of other people who are likely to influence you or to be influenced by you.
Twitalyzer’s site claims they are the Social Media industry’s most popular, most widely used analytics application, used by over 400,000 people. The site offers a full range of analysis tools and benchmark reports for you to set goals and track your progress. Because they realize this can all be a little overwhelming, they’ve put together a ton of free information, including videos and a useful, often-humorous 51-page e-book, about how to use the site and what it takes to optimize your Twitter efforts. They make no bones about saying their service is not for the casual user but for the person who is looking to use Twitter to build a business. Bottom line, if you’re super serious about Twitter and want a tool that will look at your efforts from every possible angle and give you a huge chunk of useful information, Twitalyzer is the tool for you.
The folks at TweetLevel are very upfront about the fact that this whole “Twitter Influence” thing is not an exact science. In fact, on their site, they say, “This tool is still in beta. Even though we believe that it goes a great way to understand and quantify the varying importance of different people’s usage of Twitter, by no means whatsoever do we believe we have fully solved the ‘influence’ problem. What we would appreciate is your views, your feedback, advice and criticism is crucial in helping us understand social media measurement.” That said, they do a pretty good job of breaking down your Twitter status into some useful information. Just enter your Twitter user name, and they’ll give you a plain English report of how you’re doing in four areas: Influence, popularity, engagement, and trust. TweetLevel also provides some good tips on how to use Twitter more effectively.
Another cool free product of Hubspot, TwitterGrader is the most simple of the tools on this list. You won’t get tons of analytics or in depth reports from TwitterGrader. Instead, this site will give you a grade, from 1-100, and a rank among all Twitter users. The thing about this tool is that it’s cool to see where you rank, but the usefulness of that information is limited. So, check it out, but maybe use one of the other three tools to move your Twitter campaign into overdrive.
Again, measuring your Twitter influence isn’t an exact science, but that doesn’t mean it can be ignored, if you’re concerned about optimizing your Twitter marketing efforts. So, start using one or more of the above tools, and you should be well on your way to improving your influence and making the most of Twitter.
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