Influence Vs. Follower Count on Twitter

Tuesday, 15 June 2010 | by Pat's Picks

If I had a million followers I might have a different opinion on this, but it’s my firm belief that most of the people with a million followers on Twitter don’t have nearly the influence that 7-digit number implies.

I was looking at the statistics on RetweetRank.com as a more useful measure of whether someone is actively followed. The retweet rank doesn’t measure quality of content, so a widely retweeted Kim Kardashian Twitpic might carry as much weight as breaking news from CNNBRK, but it does give you an idea of that person’s level of influence within the community that has chosen to follow them.

Naturally, through sheer number of followers (5 million) and a proven aptitude for Twitter, people like Ashton Kutcher are high in the retweet rankings. (He’s 99.99th percentile with only 114 Twitter users ranking as more re-tweeted.)

But others don’t have the influence their follower count implies. Many nationally-recognized names on Twitter built their following not only by tweeting but because followers were led to them by Twitter’s recommended list or some other outside force. Oprah Winfrey is the 7th most followed person on Twitter with 3.7 million followers, yet she comes in at 916th on the retweet list. Mariah Carey is 959th.

Jack Welch has 1.2 million followers for postition #177 on the follower list, yet he’s #2022 on the retweet list.

ABC’s Chris Cuomo got on Twitter early but doesn’t engage the Twitter community as actively as his NBC counterpart Ann Curry. It shows. They both have about a million followers, but her retweet rank is 998 while his is 4092.

Of course, I probably wouldn’t be telling this story if there wasn’t a happy ending. I’m pleased to say the @patkiernan retweet rank comes in at a very competitive #959. That’s the 99.94th percentile.

Thanks for all your retweets. They’re a vote of support for the stories we dig up every day.

PS: While we’re talking about people who like the headlines we deliver, thanks to the folks at M Booth Public Relations, who gave Pat’s Papers a nice plug in their online newsletter Word.