Measuring Twitter - You Gotta Be Kidding Me

Here's the scenario.  You launch a twitter account around a product launch.

It takes off like wildfire. But how do you go about showcasing the reach and re-tweet activity?  Laughable, right?   There are so many great tools out there.  How hard can this be?

Boy was I surprised.  Not that there aren't an insane number of tools.  Just that none of them appear to be 100% up to this task. So I set out on a quest to answer this question.

My Task:  Be able to showcase unique tweet and retweet activity (engagement) by day, week and month as well as the ability to tally up final reach.  So I want to know the WHO, WHEN and the total reach.

Here is the final tally.

The Fails = 7
The Partial Wins = 1
The Wins = 0

(Click to enlarge all screenshots below.)

#TheFails

RetweetRank (link) Score: F

I have no idea what scenario would enable this tool to be helpful or effective.  Though it's so awesome to know that my twitter account is in the 97.87 percentile.  Huh?  But hey, at least it's free.  Unlike the next one.

Tweetreach (link) Score = C-

Okay.  This gives us a total reach number.  And this was part of the ask.  But where did this number come from?  Over what time period?  What content was retweeted over the others?  What percentage of users participated versus not participating?  It's possible that the pro account would provide this but I'm hesitant to try it as the pricing escalates pretty quickly into the hundreds a month.

TweetStats (link) Score = C+

I feel really bad placing this service in the #fail category.  This tool really impressed me.  It's well done, free and an interesting way to explore your twitter activity in a profile.  I was able to see who I reply to more than others, when I tweet more during the week and even explore the clouds of my tweet content.  But I was unable to pull up any evaluations on what tweets were most retweeted or what my total reach might be in a time period.

TweetEffect (link) Score = F

WARNING!  Avoid this service like the plague.  It tries to show you what tweets you made that led to people following or not following you.  The graph at the top is so lacking in any insight that I literally laughted out loud when it loaded.  Again, looking at the list of what tweets "caused" people to leave may cause the stats addicts out there (like me) to lose way too much sleep.  Avoid at all costs!

Twitalyzer (link) Score = C [updated]

At this point I think I've given 30 tools access to my Twitter account and the design of this site made me really question whether I should grant access once again.  But I soldier on!  This service touts hundreds of reports. Um.  Really?  I'd say there are a few dozen reports.  Sadly, not one of them could give me the data I was searching for.  Their retweeters tab just said "Unfortunately we don't seem to know any of @passitalong's retweeters! Believe it or not we don't know every person who uses Twitter."  Sigh.  Fail.

UPDATE:  Per Jeff's comment at the bottom of this post, I went through each of the reports he outlines.  I have to say that some of the data points we would be looking for are here.  But it always remains a graph with the inability to drill down and see the data points.  And we would have to run a high number of reports to then pull each number into another spreadsheet (again, with the actual mentions being counted not being visible in the report we're looking at).  As many of the numbers are there, however, I updated the scoring for Twitalyzer to a C.

Twinfluence (link) Score = F

Someone needs to help all these services come up with a name that is not a variation of Tweet or Twitter.  That aside, this one was so bad it almost became my favorite.  I will have you all know I am "ranked in the of all twitterers!"  What?  Beat that!!  I think they left out a percentile number and we know how valuable that measure is!  oy.  Fail.  Next.

TwitterCounter [link] Score = B-

Okay.  TwitterCounter deserves an honorable mention.  Their solution is clean, effective and fast to repsond.  More importantly, they are proposing a paid service that will provide what I am looking for.  See image below.  But this remains vaporware at present.  It does not currenlty exist.

The one thing potentially missing from the paid service is the ability to identify unique retweets/twitters.  But if they manage to roll out this new service, I would move them up into partial win or higher.

#ThePartialWins

Radian6 [link] Score=B+

(Note:  Fake data in above image, but this shows the types of reports I used)

Radian6 remains one of my favorite tools.  I can see activity, trend it over time and even compute total reach achieved.  But what I can't easily do is pull up everything associated with a single twitter account.  I have to do a keyword search.  So what I did was do a search for anyone mentioning my twitter account.  But if your account is not, let's say, a unique word, then you're in for a lot of fiddling. 

I can't limit it to just looking at one source, because I want to see all mentions across the twitterverse, etc.

That said, I was able to pull unique mentions.  And I was able to pull a total reach number.  But I couldn't easily pull unique mentions by day, week or month.  This means I would have to run every report for every day and then tally it in Excel.  Not exactly fun.

Also, while I could pull unique mentions (choose : Unique Source Count as shown in image above) I can't easily tell what was a retweet or what was a mention without compounding significantly the number of reports I would have to run.

#TheWins

I got nothing.

But I know what I want.  I want PostRank for Twitter.  But more on PostRank later.

Know of a killer tool that would have made our life easier?  Ping me or comment below.

Comments

[Amber Naslund]

Hi Sean -

Well, I'll take a partial win. :)

A good deal of the feedback you've put in this post is stuff that we're working on, because yep...folks want to know about Twitter reach and impact. And for as much as Excel and I have a mutual love/hate relationship, I can feel you on that.

So, I'm going to be sharing this post with our product team so they know what folks like you (and I'd bet many others) are looking for. We'll keep all this in mind as we keep refining the kinds of drilldowns we can provide, and I'll do my best to keep you posted on that.

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback of not just what you're missing, but what you need. Very helpful!

Cheers,
Amber Naslund
Radian6

[Sean Howard]

Thanks Amber!

  As you know, I am head over heels in love with Radian6.  And Im in the same love/hate relationships with Excel.  But if I could pull some reports down in CSV that broke out over days or periods... that would rock my world.  Not to mention my teams world.

Sean

[Amrita Chandra]

Thanks for saving me lots of time and frustration. Wish I could get an alert once you find a "win".

Another measure I use is how a social media link comes into our sales funnel. Using Hubspot, I can track if a link I share on Twitter/FB/LinkedIn, etc...results in someone becoming a lead, which integrates into our CRM system (salesforce.com). I can pull a report that shows we closed $100k as a result of our social media outreach.

[paulmcenany]

Nice, dude!

[Mike Volpe - HubSpot]

Thanks for recommending HubSpot! The whole point of our software is to put everything in one place (social media, blogging, lead generation, analytics, email marketing, forms / landing pages, lead management, lead nurturing, etc.) so that you can more easily measure the marketing impact of the campaigns you do.

I'm glad it is working for you!

[Brentter]

ok either typepad hates me, the fact that i'm using safari or i've officially gone crazy.. either way the entire diatribe i just wrote vanished after hitting 'preview'...
uggg.

If thats the case, here's the cliffnotes - sean: you checked out the wrong app from Damon. Tweetstats is old, he part of a new startup (named untitledstartup.com) and they've got a product called rowfeeder (rowfeeder.com).. it does everything you were looking for and more.. plus its free, uses google spreadsheets + is sexy as shit. Combine that with postrank's api + you've got a reporting tool + dashboard that beats any $1k+ service/application... plus you'll get more data (not to mention the data that YOU actually need.. not just what they 'predict' is the synopsis). damn that sucks my comment went poof.. anyhow, www.rowfeeder.com... also checkout this recent study on the real influencers + what kind of 'engagement' a re-tweet actually has when put to the numbers - http://an.kaist.ac.kr/traces/WWW2010.html
cheers,
brent

[Jill Golick]

Sean,
Have you used Sysomos? http://www.sysomos.com/ I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[Sean Howard]

Thanks man

[Sean Howard]

Awesomesauce! I'm totally going to check out RowFeeder. Thanks!

And I remember seeing that someone was working on a new app, but couldn't seem to find a link to it at the time.

Checking out the influencers study as well.

Danke! Danke! Danke!

[Sean Howard]

Hi Jill,

Yup. We use both Radian6 and Sysomos.

I find Radian6 to be my preferred slice and dice tool but Sysomos is a VERY close second place. Sysomos provides really nice dashboards that are much friendlier for our clients to log in and look at.

I did not specifically try Sysomos in the above test because of the way the Sysomos licenses are structured. Unless you have a MAP account (very expensive), you can't run a new query. With Radian6, I can run any query for a week without having to buy it.

I would expect that Sysomoms would suffer from the same challenge as Radian6 above, though. It also is based on a keyword search. So it can be difficult to find everything related to a twitter account.

Hope this helps!

Sean

[Jeff Katz]

Hi Sean,

Wow D minus. Guess we need to attend Summer School :-)

There are actually a few ways to get to the information you are looking for. Not sure why you were unable to get the information when you ran your test, because it is available.

1) Metrics report: See the Retweeted and Updates boxes http://www.twitalyzer.com/metrics.asp?u=passitalong

2) Activity by Day: You can switch between Retweeted and Updates (and any other measure) over the past 7, 14, 30, 60, 90 days and all time http://www.twitalyzer.com/trends.asp?u=passitalong&ds=&s=&h=&q=Retweeted&start=8%2F6%2F2010

3) Last Seven Days: You can see view the number of updates (tweets) and RTs (plus mentions) http://www.twitalyzer.com/last-seven-days.asp?u=passitalong

4) Activity by Hour: Similar to Last Seven Days, but broken down by the hour of day. http://www.twitalyzer.com/timeofday.asp?u=passitalong

5) Tweet Reach allows you to estimate the impact and number of impressions served for Tweets, hashtags and topics. Example: http://www.twitalyzer.com/tweets.asp?u=passitalong&ts=%23measure

6) Retweeters report shows you who specifically retweeted your message. http://www.twitalyzer.com/retweeters.asp?u=passitalong

Regarding your sigh at the end because of the message we display "Believe it or not we don't know every person who uses Twitter." Our approach has always been not have every single Twitter account within our system. We do this for the simple fact that are large number of Twitter accounts are dormant or very inactive and it would skew the results. Why include an account that has not tweeted in over six months when Twitter as a medium is largely about engagement?

Happy to answer any additional questions or comments about Twitalyzer.

Thanks!

-- Jeff Katz

[Sean Howard]

Hi Jeff,

I'm going to update my review above. I looked at each of the reports you outlined. And while some of the data points we needed are available, the number of reports we would have to run and how we would have to pull each number by hand into a new Excel definitely keeps it in the Fail category. But only due to the nature of the exercise we were running, per my opening remarks.

And I understand you not wanting to keep dormant accounts in your system. But I have over 1300 followers and I'd hazard to guess that the majority of these are not dormant. And when reviewing my retweet activity, I'd say they are anything but dormant. And yet only one of my followers makes your final report. So a bit of a miss there. But I understand the data and volume concerns.

[Kate]

Hey, Sean ..

Great write up!

I wonder if Klout might work for some of what you want.

It shows me my top retweets - http://skitch.com/mynameiskate/di3p3/kate-trgovac-content-analysis

And will show me retweets per day - http://skitch.com/mynameiskate/di3p6/kate-trgovac-influence-score-analysis (if you mouse over each of those dots, it's a date).

Now, for some reason, the info is woefully out of date. But they do have a "Klout for Business" that might keep the data up to date and give you better export/graphic tools.

Cheers ... Kate

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