@TeamNutrition Twitter Evaluation Report

Transcription

1 Twitter Evaluation Report Many nutrition professionals and organizations are turning to social media to communicate nutrition messages to the public. One popular social media outlet is Twitter. By using Twitter, messages are capable of being spread quickly to a large number of people from different geographic locations. However, it s difficult to know just how effective a twitter account is at sharing information. It is my goal through completing this report to analyze how effective Twitter account is at sharing nutrition information with the public. Through my research, I found there are two tools that can be used with the best reliability and accuracy to determine how well a Twitter account is spreading nutrition messages. The first tool is to monitor the number of followers and lists monthly. Tracking this data and plotting it on a chart shows trends of growth for an account. The more followers and lists an account has, the more widely received and spread its messages are likely to be, thus increasing its influence. Another useful Twitter evaluation tool is Klout. Klout is an on-line technology tool that measures a Twitter account s true reach, amplification, and network impact and generates a score. True reach measures the number of people influenced by the account, amplification measures how much tweets are spread, and network impact measures how influential account followers are. Klout analyzes these areas and generates a Klout score out of 100 to measure the Twitter account s overall influence. Data from the three categories are broken down further and displayed through charts, graphs, scores, and other visuals. The user is also able to compare their Twitter account s influence to another account using Klout. This is a very popular technology tool and has been featured in Time Magazine s 50 Best Websites of Overall, these tools facilitate valuable insight into the effectiveness of Twitter account to spread nutrition messages to the public. (I chose not to include WeFollow.com in this report because the Twitter data was out of date.)

2 Account Monitoring Each month the number Twitter followers and lists are tracked and recorded. This data is shown in the tables below: Monthly Twitter Reports January February March April May June July August September October November December 2010 Reports 641 members as of January 13 th 815 members as of February 16th 997 members as of March 15th 1,165 members as of April 12th 1,398 members as of May 10th 1,699 members as of June 14th 1,874 members as of July 5th 2,222 members as of August 16 th 2,610 members as of September 14 th, 200 listed 2,968 members as of October 13 th, 220 listed 3,356 members as of November 15 th, 228 listed Twitter 3,624 Followers and listed 243 times 2011 Reports January Twitter 3,958 Followers and listed 252 times February Twitter 4,497 (up from 3,958) Followers and listed 262 times March Twitter 5,188 Followers and listed 293 (up from 252) times April Twitter 5,815 (+627) Followers and listed 307 times May Twitter 6,385 Followers and listed 332 times June Twitter 7,139 followers and listed 350 times July Twitter 7,342 followers and listed 357 times August Twitter 8,197 followers and listed 381 times September Twitter 8,761 followers and listed 394 times October Twitter 9,896 followers and listed 418 times November Twitter 10,476 followers and listed 428 times

3 Using this data, I generated charts showing the trends of growth in followers and lists Monthly Twitter Followers Twitter Followers Monthly Twitter Followers Number of Followers Month

4 Monthly Twitter Lists Number of Lists Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11 Oct-11 Nov-11 The charts show a steady increase in the number of Twitter followers and lists for each year. In fact, every month the account gained followers; there was not a single month that the account did not grow. In 2011, the account s growth appears to be more rapid than in From the data collected monthly by Team Nutrition on Twitter account, it is evident that the account is showing steady and consistent growth of followers and lists. It appears the account is a popular nutrition information resource and has more followers than comparable nutrition information resources, which are listed UMD Extension USDA WIC Works Resource Fruits & Veggies More Matters USDA SNAP-Ed School Nutrition USDA Food and Nutrition Services American Dietetic Farm to School Organization

5 Klout The second technology tool I used to analyze Twitter account was Klout. This is an easy to use on-line Twitter assessment tool that generates different reports on the effectiveness of an account. The first score given is the overall Klout score, shown below. The overall score is a measure of the account s network impact, amplification, and true reach. The score out of a possible 100 and is reflective of data from the past 30 days. As you can see, account s overall Klout score was 49 out of 100, which is mid-range and considered to be effectively using social media compared to other Twitter accounts.

6 Network impact measures how influential an account s followers are. The thought behind this is the more influential followers are the more potential for your messages to reach a wider audience. The below chart shows network impact score has fluctuated, but still remains above 50, meaning it is fairly high. The following images provide further breakdown of the network impact score. The left-hand one shows the follower who influences the account the most, which happens to and the right-hand one shows lists the account has been added to.

7 Amplification measures the account s influence over its followers. It is measured by how often you tweet about certain topics and how often your tweets are re-tweeted or responded to by followers. The amplification score (shown below) has also fluctuated, but the general trend is that it is increasing. Currently the score is 26, which is around average, but could be improved. The following image breaks down the amplification score by showing topics account is influential in, which includes nutrition and recipes in the top three.

8 True reach is the number of people following the account that are potentially able to be influenced by the account s messages. This chart follows along with the charts produced from the internal Monthly Reports for Team Nutrition and shows a steady and consistent growth in the number of followers. scores. The following image shows some of the followers the account influences as well as their Klout

9 Klout also allows a user to compare their Twitter account to another account. It will generate charts comparing the account s Klout, network, amplification, and true reach scores over the past 30 days. The following image is a comparison chart of the Klout scores for Twitter account and Twitter account.

10 Conclusion The two methods I feel are the best tools to evaluate the effectiveness of a Twitter account are monthly monitoring of followers and lists and using the on-line technology tool Klout. After using these tools to evaluate Twitter account and compiling the data, in my opinion the account is doing an overall excellent job at effectively spreading nutrition information to the public. The account has a large and continually growing number of followers and is at the top of the list for influential nutrition tweets compared to similar accounts. In order to improve the effectiveness of the account, amplification could be improved. Strategies for improving the amount of re-tweets and responses to tweets should be considered. Some potential ideas include having contests among followers, offering prizes or exclusive content to followers who respond to tweets, and tweeting interactive messages to followers to encourage them to react. Social media outlets, such as Twitter, are an important part of sharing information with the public, and Twitter account is effectively sharing nutrition information with the public. References Barone, Lisa. "3 Stats to Think About When Crafting Your Social Media Campaign." Small Business Trends. Small Business Trends, LLC., Web. 10 Nov < Healthy Meals Resource System. Monthly Reports. Microsoft Word files. Klout, Inc. Klout. Web. 10 Nov <

11 "The 50 Best Websites of 2011." TIME Specials. TIME Inc., Web. 16 Aug <