ANALYZE THIS!

As many of you know, I've been Tweeting now for about eight months. I've learned a lot about how valuable Twitter is for me, but I haven't really known how to figure out whether my Tweets are valuable to anyone else. I know that I get responses and retweets more frequently now, but I still have a fairly short list of followers (about 220 at last count; they come and go like Glenda the Good Witch"). What can I do to make my Tweets more valuable and interesting to others? How do I expand my "sphere of influence" on Twitter?

Take heart, buds. Now I have some answers to those questions. I've discovered a site called Twitalyzer.

Twitalyzer analyzes your Twitter performance against five key measures: influence, signal, generosity, velocity and clout. As I read about each of these categories, it became clear to me that there's a lot more to Twitter than is apparent at first glance. I'll give you a quick summary, and you'll see what I mean.

The first measurement is influence, and for the most part it's pretty obvious. Twitalyzer gives you a score based on the number of followers you have, how many times your Tweets are retweeted (a sign that others find them of value), how many tweets you post in a day or week, how often you retweet the messages of others. My score is pretty low so far, although it's improved in recent weeks as I've gained confidence in the Twitter arena (would that be the Twitterena??)

Second, Twitalyzer measures "signal." This is the substance of your tweets. Although many people think Twitter is nothing more than a series of "I'm brushing my teeth now" messages, the fact is that the majority of tweets are much more substantive than that. The more you provide links to useful information, references to other Tweeps (including their @ names), retweet the meaningful posts of others, and comment on current topics, usually identified by hashtags, the higher your "signal" score is. My performance has been rated "astonishingly high" in this category. So we know that I'm putting out lots of good stuff, but not many people are seeing it yet.

The third key area is generosity. I think it's cool that Twitter performance is judged in part by how generous you are in retweeting the posts of others. Being retweeted makes a person feel that what they have to offer is of value, and giving that kind of reinforcement freely makes you a very effective Tweep.

Velocity, measurement #4, is simply the frequency of your tweets, measured against a "theoretical maximum" of 1500 tweets per week. Since I'm now averaging between 100 and 150 tweets per week, my velocity score is quite low. I think this is directly linked to confidence and understanding of how Twitter works; the more you feel comfortable in this environment, the more frequently you're inclined to participate. (I can't imagine what it would take to get me up to 1500 tweets a week.)

The last area is clout, which is measured by the number of times other people refer to you in their tweets. If they retweet your posts or mention your name, that enhances your clout score. Mine is still very low, but it has increased in the last month, a sign that others are starting to notice some of what I have to say.

Everyone has a different purpose when they engage in social media, and Tweeps are no exception. Some are in it to have fun and meet people; others are deadly serious about promoting their products and boosting the public profile of their businesses. I'm somewhere in the middle--having fun, growing my network, looking to increase my own visibility, and at the same time, learning how to use these tools effectively so I can advise my clients.

The best thing of all about Twitalyzer is that it's like a blueprint for becoming a more influential Tweep. It's all there in black and what. Read what it takes to become influential, and then do what it says. You'll do great!

BACK FROM BLOGWORLD

I've just returned from the BlogWorld and New Media Expo (#bwe09) in Las Vegas. It was a huge conference--about 5,000 attendees, I gather. I've never attended an event before where at least 70% of the audience was typing away on their laptops during the sessions and in the halls at break time. Electrical outlets with room for one more charger were harder to find than sober guys at a bowling convention. These were definitely some plugged-in people.

BlogWorld organizers created a number of different content tracks targeted to specific users. Since much of the conference was designed for bloggers, there was a track for military bloggers, one for real estate blogs, a track on blog monetization (making money from your blog), and a "mommy" blogger track. Who knew that mommy bloggers were such a widely recognized force that there is now an "ethical code of practice" for them? Apparently some companies provide free products and other considerations to high-profile mommy bloggers in order to win favorable comments, hence the risk of ethical conflicts.

There was a separate track for social media, and that's where I spent most of my time. I wanted to learn more about how businesses and organizations are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasting and other online communications tools.

I was a little surprised at the informality of the sessions. Out of the seven or eight sessions that I attended, only one included a formal presentation (with Powerpoint slides) on the topic. The others consisted of panels with three or four people each, mostly answering questions from the audience. Answering questions is a good thing, but I found myself wishing that these sessions had included at least a short initial presentation from each of the panel experts. Audience questions don't always hit the topics the speakers know best.

The informality became a bigger problem during the first day's luncheon. The "luncheon keynote" speaker was Scott Monty from Ford Motor Co. Monty has been one of the driving forces behind Ford's blogging and social media efforts. I would have enjoyed hearing him speak about the successes and failures associated with those initiatives.

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to hear Scott Monty--or to see him, for that matter. Instead of having the guy stand up at a podium where he could be seen, they had him sitting down on the platform to be "interviewed" by a moderator. Neither person could be seen. To make matters worse, the sound system was so poor that neither speaker could be heard either.

In addition, they began the program at the start of the luncheon service. So instead of focusing on the speakers, the audience was busy getting served, passing the rolls and butter, asking for beverages, and trying to figure out whether their coffee cups were to the right or left of their plates. It was virtually impossible to give the speaker our undivided attention.

Periodically, the poor moderator demanded silence, but it was impossible. Midway through the presentation, someone had the brains to turn up the mikes so she and Scott Monty could be heard, but by then it was too late. Half of the audience had finished lunch and left, while the other half stayed out of courtesy, most checking their e-mail on cell phones or browsing the latest on Twitter.

In a way, this was reflective of the tone of the entire conference. Informality is great, and generally I'm in favor of less structure rather than more. However, informality at the expense of content is counterproductive. The Web 2.0 generation is mostly kids under 35 (these days, everyone under 50 is a kid to me), and I love their creative energy and confident command of the new technologies. But maybe just a little more structure in the interests of effective content delivery would be beneficial.

On the other hand, maybe this just isn't the right conference for people like me. As my sister says, "You need a journal that has lines on the page, I need one without lines. That's the difference between us."

If this conference had had a few more lines on the page, I would have enjoyed it more. And I bet many more people would have heard what Scott Monty had to say.