While attending an Internet marketing conference in Chicago, I spent a lot of time networking with my peers.
As I sat at the dinner table last night, I noticed that a bunch of us were twittering on our handhelds.
Simon Leung, Donna Fox, Eric Farewell, Anik Singal and several others had their PDAs or phone out and were twittering away... sometimes to each other other, even though they were sitting across the table from each other!
So I thought to myself... "Geeks!"
And than I wondered....
With all the people "following" each other, how may followers were truly active.
It inspired me to do a series of only slightly scientific experiments to see if it were possible to extrapolate some data that would be of use to twitterers.
At 1 am on Saturday morning, this is what I tweeted...
"Twitter experiment #1 - How many followers will see this message within 24 hours AND reply to me? Go! Results reported after 24 hours. "
It's now been 24 hours and I can give you the results of my only barely scientific experiment.
First of all, you should know that at the time I began the experiment I had 2317 followers on Twitter.
At the end of the 24 hours I had 2340. I typically will get 15 or so new followers each day, so I probably added a few additional new ones as a result.
It's important to note the date and time at which I tweeted. SInce it was 1 am CST on Saturday morning, there were far fewer people online than there may have been had I posted at 1 pm CST on Wednesday afternoon.
As you would expect, there was an immediate flood of @joelcomm responses from those who were actively twittering at the moment, but I could easily speculate the numbers would be higher if I choose a more convenient time and date.
There was something else I didn't account for. I expected people to reply with @joelcomm as a public tweet.
However, some people choose to reply via private message. I certainly should count those.
And since I have my Twitter displaying on my Facebook page, some people choose to message me directly on Facebook. Those, too, should be counted.
So here are the stats...
104 - People who responded with a public @joelcomm (the majority within the first few hours and none in the last five hours)
6 - People who responded via Twitter private message
6 - People who responded via Facebook private message
That's a total of 116 people who responded to my public request for a ping back.
That's essentially a 5% conversion rate.
How do those numbers strike you? Would you have expected more responses? Fewer responses?
I will be doing some additional experiments in the coming weeks as I think we, as a Twitter community, could do with a better sense of what is actually taking place in the Twittersphere. Stay tuned for more experiments and results!
SIDEBAR: When I set this up, I realized shortly thereafter that I would not be able to tweet again for 24 hours. If I did, my primary request for responses would disappear from my profile.
What's the solution?
I think Twitter should add a function that would allow you to add TWO messages at once.
The primary message would be like a signature line that could stay on your profile page at all times.
The secondary message would be the more traditional "what are you doing now"
In this way, I believe people would use the service more because they could tweet freely and still keep a primary message in front of their followers. I know I would like to see it happen!
Anyone know someone at Twitter to suggest this to?
Anyhow, I would love it if you would do three simple things...
1) Twitter about this blog entry so others in your circle can check out the results
2) Leave your comments below
3) Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/joelcomm
Tweet on!
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
July 19, 2008 11:49 PM
It would be interesting if you had a more meaningful "call to action," I think.
Sending you a dollar through paypal?
July 19, 2008 11:58 PM
Joel what I like about you is your ability to think out of the box and then to ascertain such important information. Thanks
July 19, 2008 11:58 PM
Interesting experiment, Joel. I would have expected a higher conversion rate, say 25% or so. Maybe it was the late hour at which you posted.
I like your idea of having a primary post that stays on top until you change it, at the same time allowing you to tweet freely.
July 20, 2008 12:00 AM
Hi Joel, you will laugh at this comment when I tell you that I am not even on Twitter yet, but it is on my "list" of things to learn. Tonight when I saw your note in your status bar on facebook and decided to check out your blog. I will be following this twitter testing thing you are doing!
Darlene
July 20, 2008 12:03 AM
Joel,
Great Feedback and idea. Just couldn't figure out the USP?
Get Your Name On!
Mike
http://twitter.com/mike1mb
July 20, 2008 12:07 AM
Hi Joel,
My take on your %5 conversion could be due to the fact that many users are not aware of the various PC related apps such as http://twhirl.org that make twittering fun and easy.
For me, I personally didn't get all that excited about twitter until I discovered twhirl. I like the fact that it runs in the background and pops up an alert when someone I follow posts a "tweet". I think it's the coolest thing. Yes, I'm geek. I'd be curious to know what others think.
The other problem could simply be people don't really know what it is or understand it completely.
I put together a static webpage with a video called: "Twitter In Plain English" and sent it out to my list:(http://JamesGrandstaff.com/twitter.html - I understand if you removed the link but please watch the video yourself and perhaps share it with your followers; you can find it on YouTube.)
The video does a great job explaining why a person might want to use twitter and the feedback from my peeps has been great :)
Anyway... thanks for sharing those numbers.
Keep on rockin' my brotha! Peace.
James Grandstaff
July 20, 2008 12:26 AM
Joel! I agree! I have wanted a "sticky" primary tweet for a while! You can post a primary message you want visible as the "sticky".
Twitter can limit stickies to a 24 hour period, then they flow back with the tide. I don't see how it would add to twitter's overall tweet volume. I think it would reduce it! People (like me) tend to retweet important stuff they want seen because it just is carried away on the current. This would stop that from happening!
I think we should start a Twitition and let Twitter know what the Tweeple want! (I sound like @coachDeb !)
Tweet @ ya later!
Amy
As for your 5%. I'm disappointed! I would have expected more. Afterall you ARE Joel Comm! (lol!) Still I would have expected at least 20% or 15%. But hey I am an optimist! :-)
July 20, 2008 12:54 AM
A Simple Search http://search.twitter.com/search?q=@joelComm will reveal details you are looking for in a longer time period as well, You can also grab the RSS feed of that search as well from http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%40joelComm
Should provide you some more answers
July 20, 2008 12:54 AM
Are you going to do a mid day test? Thinking it would get more than 5%.
As for the sticky tweet, I don't know if would be that helpful. Your contest tweet was at the top of your profile for 24hrs because you didn't tweet.
The thing is you didn't get any visits in the later hours of the experiment, and said most were in the early hours (care to be more specific about majority?).
What this tells me is people generally read only their own time lines and only so far back.
Twitter seems to be an immediate response system. Time to study prime response times?
Thanks for sharing this.
July 20, 2008 02:07 AM
Dude... you did NOT just call me a geek!
You were as much a tweeter as the rest of us haha
Now go get me more followers :)
Simon Leung
http://twitter.com/simonleung
July 20, 2008 02:10 AM
I am new to Twitter. Currently, I am studying Twitter and experimenting with the concept and application! As a business resource for clients, I use Twitter to educate and promote my clients' products and services! My goal is to demonstrate to my clients how to use this technology to stay connected, knowledgeable, productive and profitable! I recently wrote an article about Barack Obama and Social Media (www.E3C.typepad.com) .... He tweets too! Obama is followed by over 39,590 supporters and he follows almost 41,000 people! Barack is embracing the Internet and Social Media too! It's appears to be working for him! (smile)
July 20, 2008 02:39 AM
Dude... you did NOT just call me a geek!
You were as much a tweeter as the rest of us haha
Now go get me more followers :)
Simon Leung
www.twitter.com/simonleung
July 20, 2008 04:29 AM
I like the idea of your experiment but I agree with Pat O'Bryan: a more compelling call to arms might be more useful. I never respond to 'how many people can we get to join this group' messages.
July 20, 2008 05:04 AM
Nice post Joel. I must say that the power of Twitter works. Not only have I communicated with Joel through Twitter, when we met, it was easier to "break the ice" since we had communicated before.
In fact there's a funny video Joel and I did about Twitter. Just go http://mscopeland.com and you'll see it.
Pretty awesome.
July 20, 2008 05:38 AM
Hey, Joel!! I saw the tweet, then promptly forgot it... I meant to reply, but there was no REASON to reply. Other than just because you are JOEL COMM and ASKED!! :)
Imagine if you were to do the same experiment using a tweet that was useful to others, and during hours when tweeting is most prevalent! Like a "7 Worst Things You Can Do..." blog post? People would click through just to see what you said! Then at the top of the post, ask everyone to please comment with their @username if they came from Twitter.
Just a thought, don't mind me... :P
July 20, 2008 07:41 AM
Joel, I think the question is not how many people are following you but how many have you turned on to come straight to their pda/phone. Is there anyway for you to gauge this? If people don't have you going to straight to their pda it may be 24 hours before they read the message.
On another note, I responded via private message as I didn't see the relevance to everyone who follows me and since you don't follow me I wasn't sure you would get it.
Cheers...Allyson
July 20, 2008 07:49 AM
I'm still pretty new to twit-style life, but love being shown the glories by people like you, Joel Comm.
I think its impressive that out of 116 responses you got 23 new followers.
The world just gets more exciting.
July 20, 2008 08:59 AM
Joel
the problem with your sticky message idea is that Twitter is not intended as a marketing tool! Shock horror!
And why would all your friends want to know see something simultaneously about you all day? Other than it's my birthday and if they are your friends (or follow your birthday wishes tweets) they'd probably know that ;-)
You can always edit your BIO is you think you have something of such great "all-day" importance ROFLOL.
I think 5% is quite high for people who are interested in what you have to say. Especially with such a pointless message.
The effectiveness of Twitter is going to reduce to a spam fest if people continue to try and use it like a live RSS feed or a bookmark machine gun.
Twitter is about close relationships and a smattering of wild cards.
The way to monetise Twitter is not to use as a broadcast blaster.
Once people latch on to what Twitter ACTUALLY is, hopefully all the IM crew will go and abuse something else.
If you can't get people to come to you for reasons other than you just tweeted, I humbly suggest you re-visit your marketing thinking.
Twitter is one of the most valuable communication tools to come out of web 2.0. I hope that for people who it for real relationships (life) and for business, that this sort of band wagon thinking will soon die out.
I think you'll soon find that your followers will rebel once you stop offering them value and once they realise you don't care a bean about them.
What was the last tweet EACH of your 2000+ flock made?
I doubt you know and I doubt you care.
One definition of communication is a TWO WAY dialogue.
You might want to have a think about that!
Peter
July 20, 2008 09:24 AM
Hey Joel, I twittered earlier this morning that Twitter was down for several hours yesterday. Maybe you could run the experiment again on a Wednesday AND on Saturday. I would do it except I only have 41 followers.
July 20, 2008 01:54 PM
Hi Joel
I was one of the 5% responding, so I am happy to see I was among "the few" who did respond.
That being said, I would also say that it IS vacation time, so many would also be on summer vacations at this time, so a 5% conversion rate during July and August seems better than average.
Which amounts to declaring you deserve high praise for having so highly qualified a bunch of followers. :-D
Carpe diem. :-)
July 20, 2008 05:58 PM
Ya' know, I was almost a bit offended about you calling me a geek....
But then I remembered that YOU PLAY WoW!
Haha.
Get me more followers too... I think you owe me now ;-)
www.twitter.com/ericfarewell
July 20, 2008 09:04 PM
I don't think the previous comment about knowing your follower's last tweet applies - twitter allows people to "subscribe" in a one way relationship.
When we talked about the experiment at the table, I had guessed 200 to 300 responses. Even lower, hmmmm...
And Mr. Farewell - I was at the 8am presentation, where were you?
July 21, 2008 02:43 AM
I think more testing is required but for the first test 5% is a good base line .By the way i was one of this 6 people who responded directly using twhirl.
July 21, 2008 02:49 AM
I'm new to twitter and I replied publicly but now as someone pointed out above, I have some nonsense in MY timeline thanks to you lol.
It's an interesting experiment and brings up some interesting responses.
I think in hindsight that while it was an interesting experiment, the result could not be extrapolated to anything real you might want to do like make a sale or get someone on a list.
I can think of 4 quite different tweets that might get quite different responses:
I have some news - read it here
I have some news about xxx - read it here
I have a great offer - check it out
I have a great offer on xxx - check it out
But overall I agree with Peter. Commission junkie marketers that bombard me by email get tolerated - they go in the swipe file. If my tweet alerts start popping up with those kind of messages, I will stop following them.
Because I'm new to twitter I have no reason yet for people to follow me - a few pity me I guess lol and quite a few that I've followed have followed me back and then unfollowed. And that's as it should be.
How do I work on getting LOYAL followers (because with this tool that must be the only thing that's going to count). I tweet things that if other people hear, they think they might want to hear what I have to say in the future. And they follow.
A lot of people will follow you Joel because of your reputation and that's great - it means you've done a great job as a marketer.
My guess is that if you write a blog bost with a great insight and no 'commission agenda' - people will go once and then follow everything you tweet. Then if they explore your blog and buy - they won't associate you as getting them to buy - you'll still be the good guy.
As soon as you make one commission motivated tweet, you'll be exposed as someone who is not using twitter to share but is thinking how can I make tweet benefit me.
And though I've referred to YOU I don't mean anyone to take this post as meaning that I'm writing about you - I mean anyone who is thinking of using twitter for personal gain.
July 21, 2008 03:03 AM
I should have added to that last sentence that I mean anyone who is trying to make a personal gain from that specific tweet. If you have a great blog and you only tweet about the non-commercial posts on your own blog of course you will personally gain in the long term. (remember that if you only tweet about your own stuff I'm going to unfollow too :-)
So it might be hard to differentiate between the genuine sharing tweeters and the smart marketing tweeters because the latter will try their damnedest(?) to look like the former and the better they do it, the more successful their tweeting will be :-)
All IMHO
July 21, 2008 05:34 AM
Doh! I should have read your twitter report first :-) Could have saved myself a lot of time lol. Great report.
July 21, 2008 03:29 PM
I saw your Tweet message and should have answered right away but was on my way out for the weekend and forgot about it.
I agree it would be nice to be able to have a Tweet visible longer.
Cheers! -Joyce
July 22, 2008 11:15 AM
It's not how many followers who follow you on Twitter, it has more to do with those you respond to and those who believe in what you tell them...remember, one click and they're gone forever?
July 26, 2008 02:31 AM
What would you think of a 1.6% conversion on Twitter - to SALES?
It happened. Just last week.
@drmani
:)
All success
Dr.Mani
July 27, 2008 02:01 AM
ME????....Twitter-Hall Monitor???
You Jest Young Man ...Surely??
August 22, 2008 10:24 PM
Hey Joel,
I expect 5% is higher than normal- not all tweets are calls to action, and not all are so open-ended and simple as "just reply back to me"- also, the idea of being included in an experiment is more exciting... I'd say my most interesting tweets probably only get about 5-10 replies max, and I have about 800 followers, so that's more like 1% response.
It has occurred to me that you COULD approach all your tweets as copywriting to get a response, but some people would see through the baiting and get tired of it. Since social networking on Twitter is more about the relationship, you can't "cash in" constantly without looking like a pure sales-letter type of marketer.
I prefer to "live on twitter" which means there's boring, weird, and interesting stuff in my stream- but the cool part of that is that sometimes twitter celebrities I would like to get to know will respond to some obscure interest of mine we have in common, and that starts to build something... thus far, this approach has gotten me lots of opportunities including 4 conference speaking gigs in just 5 months on Twitter... so I think marketers have to watch their salesiness on Twitter- but you've probably written things along those lines already?