Vinicius Vacanti - Latest Comments in Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

Cool girl — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:15:20 -0000

I knew, I had followers even before I posted anything.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

vacanti — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:06:23 -0000

Those accounts are good examples of twitter accounts that aren't "really" following you.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

CrazyGabe.Dj — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:39:18 -0000

Twitter users like Mc Hammer,Ijustine,BJMendelson,WholeFoods,coldplay,DellOutlet,twitter,cnnbrk,THE_REAL_SHAQ,davemorin,FragDolls are all using a Marketing Firm or Program to get followers. Its obvious- no picture-following the same 20 people

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

vacanti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:05:39 -0000

@adrigonzo I agree with your comments. It is asking a lot of people to constantly participate. The purpose of my analysis was to capture the reach of twitter messages. That is, when Scoble tweets, how many people actually read it. The only way to gauge that currently is to look at the number of followers but, as the analysis above indicates, those followers aren't reading those tweets.

By "real" I just mean followers that were actually reading that person's tweets.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

vacanti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:02:21 -0000

@TNVWBOY I think that's an excellent idea and one that shouldn't be too difficult to implement with the structured @ system of replies. Other stats you could look at are: retweets and click through rates on links shared through tweets

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

vacanti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:59:20 -0000

@dalka

I did not look at long tail accounts but do agree that it would be an interesting analysis.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

Adrienne — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:15:20 -0000

This is another example of social networking's dark side - if someone signs up for a site and isn't an "active" participant in the community that site is trying to set up, they just don't count.

It's great to want to encourage people to participate but is it really necessary for someone to be tweeting all day long about every single thing they're up to in order to be considered "real"? That seems unfair and is assuming that all people who sign up for any given site have both the time and desire to constantly update/participate on that site.

@adrigonzo

And yes, I'm a "real" Twitter user.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

vacanti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:02:34 -0000

@Ru Great points. The vast majority of the non "real" followers were accounts that were created, had a few followers, never updated or last updated months ago. In other words, they were just people who tried out the site for a little bit and decided it wasn't for them.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

Dalka — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:00:15 -0000

While this is a bit too simplistic, it's certainly factual. I don't think frequency is the right metric though.

Did you analyze long tail accounts? That would be far more interesting.

@dalka

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

TheJennTaFur — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:14:37 -0000

@tnvboy that is an excellent point. I know I have quite a few people who respond to me through twitter then another half that does not. I have no idea if they benefit from me either for these individuals never engage in conversation nor share links. I do check their blogs but we are not in social media for the same reasons (I think). Since I cannot *physically* read them then I have to read their blogs to see if they benefit from anything I say? Since I am not gaining from them that is when I decide it is best to un-follow? I appreciate you pointing this out.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

TNVWBOY — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:30:37 -0000

I like this concept. I know many of my follower (not that I have lots) are following me but not necessarily reading my tweets and certainly not engaging with me.

I think that might be a more interesting statistic. How many of their thousands of followers actually respond and participate with the person they are following? If I were to guess I would say it's going to be under 50%.

Re: Your Twitter Followers Aren't Real

Ru Viljoen — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:49:44 -0000

I think a lot of people use twitter to keep up to date. They are active but more as spectators than news sharers. The follow count limit is an unusual criteria for considering someone as a real follower. Many people follow 500+ and divide them into groups via a client such as tweetdeck. I realize you said it is not perfect, but I think this is too imperfect.