Follower Base
We analyzed 10 diverse organizations that are among the most successful nonprofits on Twitter based on number of followers:
Organizations can track their Twitter statistics using a variety of free and paid web tools (See Appendix B for the ones we used in this study). Although these tools do offer some good basic data, datasets are sometimes limited. Many provide data only from the previous 30 days; others experience lag time or display data in inconsistent periods. Keeping your own offline data for long-term tracking is critical. Moreover, some data these sites provide is less helpful, such as one site's "Daily Reach Rate" or follower growth predictions.
Organizations should also be wary of "Twitter Rank" or tools that will compare your account with others. Each service that ascribes a "rank" uses proprietary algorithms that may judge your organization against metrics that are not important; they intrinsically are designed for ranking individual users, not organizations. Instead, it is best to measure where you are, and set specific goals based on your available resources and the kind of relationship you want to build with followers. Your own objectives and goal-setting matter far more than an arbitrarily assigned ranking.
Tweets by Organization
The organizations in our data set sent on average four to five tweets per day. Tweet frequency varied widely – total tweets for the entire month of November ranged from 21 for the American Red Cross to 461 for Greenpeace, for example.
Follower Growth
The average monthly follower growth for our Twitter sample was 9% – much higher than average monthly growth on both Facebook Fan pages (3.75%) and nonprofit email lists (1.4%). It is worth noting that Twitter itself has seen exponential growth – unique visitors grew by 1,200% from November 2008 to November 2009.
As with Facebook, a primary driver of follower growth is the ability for followers to share, or retweet, an organization's message on Twitter with their own followers. In our sample we found a trend relating tweets to follower growth: more tweets lead to more retweets, which lead in turn to more follower growth. The more you tweet, the more new followers you'll gain.
Of course, this assumes your tweets are worth reading! The organizations in this sample have built solid followings, presumably because their content is engaging.
Follower Churn
We were unable to find a free tool that can measure how many people "un-follow" a Twitter feed. Under extreme conditions, you would see a decrease in total followers if un-following outpaces recruitment, but in most cases, "un-follows" are simply rolled up into total follower counts – hidden by net growth.