There are two tools that people use to rank themselves on Twitter; Twinfluence and Twitter Grader. A couple of weeks ago Mashable wrote an article about how to improve your rank and the criteria that each tool uses to rank you.
While I have tested the tools, I have not broadcast my scores on Twitter, which many people seem to do. And I have good scores, I just don’t see the point. I have wondered why people do tweet the score that they received.
A couple of weeks ago I asked this question on Twitter and got the following answers.
And on Facebook my friend Susan replied with,
“Because we’ve had years over years of brainwashing that metrics (grades, ROI, etc) are proof (the only “real” proof to some) of “value,” and we all want to feel that we have value, get value, and bring/add value.”
What do you think? Have you tried these tools? Do you think these tools are fun but frivolous? Do you think the Twitter grades matter? Would you be less inclined to follow someone who had a low score?
I am of course not a twitter fan. I can imagine the popularity its gaining. I suppose at one time it will become like the page rank
Shamelle -EnhanceLife’s last blog post – Using Humor As A Social Lubricant!
I must admit, I haven’t even used tools to check twitter rank, probably because I don’t use twitter as much as I should ;) I totally agree with your friend Susan’s comments though – we are obsessed with grades, rankings, positions… it starts early in life and only gets worse when you spend a lot of time online… how many of us at some point have been obsessed with our web site / blog stats? It’s like you have to forcibly break the trend!
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Susan is spot on that we are besotted with the idea of metrics. I couldn’t care less what my Twitter metrics are. The real metrics are whether I’m connecting with people and communicating effectively — that can’t be measured with software!
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I am proud to say that I have never looked up any sort of Twitter ranking. Except FollowCost, but that was only so I could make a post about how stupid it is.
Wesley’s last blog post – Jan Blencowe was going to offer a discount painting, but changed her mind.
I could care less what my twitter rank is. It’s a tool for me to communicate with people I know (virtually at least.) It’s like asking how good you are on AIM.
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The only Twitter tool I used is Qwitter and I guess I’m a Qwitter quitter since I just quitted Qwitter (say that ten times!). I like Twitter, but I don’t think I will get that deep in the tools. I definitely don’t care able rank.
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I seriously don’t have time for these things. I hardly have time to tweet and to read tweets. :)
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Ugliest Shoes EVER
Oh, dear. Stress is not a good thing.
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I dont think it has any advantages but it definitely gives an idea about how active you are on Twitter. And besides, everyone likes a good stat. And Twitter might soon become the new place for advertisers as i have seen some companies doing it. Then these stats might become important.
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@Shamelle – Thanks for visiting and commenting. It’s interesting that you made the comment about page rank. Right now a lot of people on twitter are posting their Twitter Rank, which is apparently a brand new ranking service. I read the FAQ but can’t determine how it is calculated.
Can I ask why you’re not a fan of twitter? I’m not a fan of the rankings and grades but I love twitter.
@Ross – My twitter status goes into my Facebook status, which is why Susan answered me on Facebook. She did give a great answer. We are compelled to place value on the ranking systems that we have grown accustomed to.
@Mike – Exactly! I believe I met you through Twitter before our blogs so for that very reason Twitter has been very valuable to me :-)
@Wesley – I didn’t really understand FollowCost – was that the one where it measured how much “noise” someone creates? And on your 2nd comment about stress – are you responding to Vered?
@Jim – Thanks for visiting and commenting! How good are you on AIM? ;-)
@Carla – Thank you! I keep forgetting to unsubscribe from Qwitter. Now you’ve reminded me that I need to do that.
@Vered – lol – So true. I was curious about the scores but am certainly not going to broadcast them through Twitter. I wonder if anyone is going to comment with a different point of view. We have all been in agreement.
@Madhur – Interesting. I hadn’t considered the advertising perspective. So, having a higher rank will be more advantageous to companies rather than individuals …?
Yes. While it’s great that Vered wants to live an active and full live, if she doesn’t even have time to check her Twitter ranking (all you have to do is click and type in your username), I imagine she doesn’t have nearly enough free time, which could lead to a lot of stress.
Wesley’s last blog post – Jan Blencowe was going to offer a discount painting, but changed her mind.
More than any tools, or number of subscribers, etc. I think the best way to know you are making high marks on a network is by the useful information you give and receive. :)
~ Kristi
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Yeah, I am not a Twitter fan either. I hear how it works from here and there, but honestly I don’t buy this ranking system stuff. I know most people hate it in schools so why do we continue with stuff like this as adults, it only adds division, when what the world needs today more so than ever, is unity and oneness.
Now having said that, I am not against feedback, that is a very important and powerful tool in my opinion. But the feedback has to be helpful, not set up to be divisive, critical or alienating.
Heck, never mind, finding time for Twitter is another story, I wish I had more time just to write on my sites ;)
I find Twitter Grader amusing and do check my ranking and other people’s but there has been so much flux in the grades that I doubt that they mean much. I think that for me it is a fun tool to visit and since I connected with @grader, I am given suggestions of others to connect with. there have been a few very interesting connections I have found that way. I think Mike is right though, the real importance of Twitter is relationships and that’s the benefit I see from Twitter itself.
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Interesting… but I think I’ll avoid checking my rank. ;) I’m a pretty sporadic Twitterer (that’s a word, right?) and tend to stick to old-fashioned SEO and link-building to promote my sites. Thanks for the links though!
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I didn’t even know such tools existed. I don’t really care what my ranking is. It’s for fun, an easy and quick way to stay in touch with people. no “inbox” of mail to read. I don’t worry to much about stats…
@Wesley
I think Vered might have meant Twitter is not nearly important enough for her to bother checking her ranking.
Interesting, Kim. I don’t care what my Twitter rank is either. I like Twitter but I use it for fun and any benefts my blog might get are just an added bonus.
Kelly :)
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What does really a rank mean in the case of Twitter? :) Just curious and lazy to read the other linked articles…
Cheers,
Ajith
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I’ve wondered about the need to grade ourselves on twitter. Yes, I get it is a tool many use as marketing themselves and/or products in some fashion. In a sense, I’ve used it to help promote my blog. But, it’s also just a lot of fun and a great way to meet people & learn about things I’d never know otherwise.
I wonder if we are just too uptight to enjoy ourselves and participate in something strictly for the pure pleasure of it.
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@Kelly
In that case, good to know that she has her priorities in order.
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@Kristi – I agree! But how can that be measured? It seems like it is really important to a lot of people. Or maybe they just think it’s fun.
@Evita – Thanks for visiting and commenting. I’m so delighted to see new people. Can I ask why you don’t like Twitter? And I really like you ideas about unity and constructive feedback.
@Julie – I also checked mine but I didn’t tweet them. I really wonder why people broadcast the score. It hadn’t occured to me that people would meet others that way. And I have a much stronger relationship or “know” the people better that visit my blog and that I interact with on Twitter.
@Lindsay – Thanks for visiting and commenting! I think it’s a word. Actually, on Twitter you seem to be able to make up all kinds of words that begin with TW – Twitterverse, Tweeple, Tweets … I think Twitter is better for interacting with interesting people than site promotion.
Heh.
This user has the most social capital:
http://twitter.com/juksie
Wesley’s last blog post – What is the deal with this?
@Natural – Well, now through my awesome article you now know that such things exist ;-) It’s just the tip of it when it comes to tools and apps for Twitter.
@Kelly – I think Twitter is best used for fun. Being helpful and being helped. And if anything else comes out of it then bonus!
@Ajith – The different tools use different criteria. Grader uses a mix of followers/following ratio and tweet frequency. I believe Twinfluence also uses prestige of followers. It’s all highly scientific ;-)
@Tawnya – Thanks for visiting and commenting! How have the ranking tools helped you promote your blog. Sometimes the grading tool puts me on the front page for Philadelphia Elite, whatever that means, and I get new local followers but I don’t see how that would promote my blog.
@Wesley – Do you know that person? You are one of three followers. Recently I had a new follower who didn’t have a picture, hadn’t posted any messages, and was only following me. It was unnerving.
Heh. Sounds like a stalker. :)
Wesley’s last blog post – What is the deal with this?
Heh. Sounds like a stalker. :)
If he were just following you anyway, I wonder why he even bothered making an account, rather than just checking your page.
Wesley – I know! It’s most likely that the person was just testing out Twitter and happened upon my account. At least I hope …
That’s probably right.
Hm, I didn’t mean to post my previous comment twice. Oops.
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Hi Kim,
To answer your question as to why I don’t like twitter, I would first have to say it is not that I like it or do not like it (I try not to judge things in my life anymore) but that I do not have a preference for it. I am sure it is a great tool and many enjoy it, it just does not appeal to me. I guess that comes down to the idea of sharing what I am doing with others every minute of the day, not that there is anything to hide, but just time wise and again not my preference. And then the fact that people have this rating system and such, I guess eludes to almost like a popularity contest? I don’t know as I am not familiar enough with the details. I am sure one can be a member and use it in a limited capacity.
Anyway, it took me long enough to join Facebook ;) So who knows maybe in the future I will give Twitter a try too :)
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Hi Evita – It took me quite some time to get into Twitter. I used it on and off for about 6 months before everything clicked. But, it’s certainly not for everyone.
I didn’t like Facebook much at first but I do now. I’ve located some long lost friends. I use it more for fun, though, than for networking.
I just added my twitcount to my twitter landing page. It’s already out of date as I seem to be getting a new follower every hour or so…which is great! The more, the merrier.
David – I agree. I enjoy twitter more and more the larger my network grows. I can’t keep up with everything anymore and tweetdeck helps but still …
:lol: I liked Susan’s answer.
I really doubt if I care about twitter ranking, for me twitter is still a monologue mechanism though once in a while you can get some questions answered (without greater interaction like chat, forums)
Instead of ranks on how many (silent) followers one might have. they should measure the ranks of any system based on its real ‘buy-in’ and ‘interactivity’. Unfortunately, partly it is driven by the technical limits… Look at wordpress commenting system. Though you may have threaded commenting plugin etc. is it really still a good way of having dialogues (or even ‘multi’logues – i am searching for a word, :D)?
Basically the ranks, counts etc that we are so obsessed with is the creation of SEO companies and partly self imposed. Unfortunately, if you want to publicize and monetize your blog you have to worry about some of those numbers though they are not KPIs that measure the real success.
(Hope I did not deviate from the topic under discussion)
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@Ajith – I don’t think you went off topic :-)
What is a KPI?
And Susan really did have an awesome answer.
KPI = Key Performance Indicator
(I have been reading a lot about twitter of late and that’s why I came back and elaborated :P)
Ajith – Thanks! Sounds like metrics.
I have tweeted my scores and it has brought me more followers. Does this matter? I’m not sure.
What I think is this: When you have more people following you and you send out a tweet the chances of people coming to your site or listening to what you have to say increases. If you are in a crowd and you scream, more people will hear you. If you’re in a room and one person is in the room and you scream, one person hears you. It’s in numbers. The flip side is, who is really listening when you scream? The one person or the crowd?
I’ve also found that people follow those with larger numbers (status). Does it matter? Again, I’m not sure.
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@Sommer – Interesting. I didn’t know scores would bring more followers. But I did know that the more followers you have the better the chance is that at least one person is listening. I really like interacting and if 100 followers would talk to me that would be awesome. But I need to have 1000 to get a decent number to have a conversation with.