louisgray.com - Latest Comments in louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

eric j henderson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:33:01 -0000

A full year late here, but I would still like to join the fray (dead fray though it may be...)

I think it is an excellent measure - one that should launch each person into qualitative questioning to see what the proper ratio should be for his/her purposes. Think of it in the same way that we wouldn't toss out liquidity or leverage ratios for business without thinking what's right for a given type of business, e.g. retail vs. manufacturing.

I got here because I wondered about this ratio as an in indicator of quality and knew I could find someone who had already thought on it. Had to go back a year, but this discussion is still relevant.

I think what would orient this conversation is a listing of some assumptions - in this case the assumptions I'm using to say this is a valid measure:

1. Talk too much - people leave or relevant follower # doesn't grow (at extreme, imagine one follower, 100 tweets)
2. Say irrelevant things - people leave or relevant follower # doesn't grow (nuf said on this one - it's the twitter stereotype)
3. Talk too little - people leave or relevant follower # doesn't grow (at extreme - imagine one tweet)

Since I'm a little skeptical about pruning rates, only because I can't find data on that and because it's a bit of work to go back in an cut people out that just sit quietly in your queue...I will look at "# of relevant followers" and the growth in that number as a quality indicator.

So, with this, I imagine that relevant content at a volume that suits your target audience should produce visible growth in that audience. This makes my tweet to follower ratio highly relevant. I'm creating optimum quality of content to grow an audience by talking just the right amount and then by saying useful stuff when I do. Further, while skeptical about pruning rates, I do believe that people drop at a reasonable rate when they see content that doesn't interest.

I'm at .12 which makes me a Listener - Cool with that but let's not think of this as a passive thing. Other people appreciate someone who listens. But, more than that, I see this as thoughtful broadcasting: Speak when you have something to say and people will buy into that. The proof will be the type of follower you get, not necessarily the volume.

For certain businesses, I believe 500 followers is a perfect number and that 1000 could be an awful one.

Much peace.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Louis Gray — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:09:12 -0000

Vanmaaen, it looks to me that your two prior comments, back in April,
are still accurate, and were not changed. What is it you think should
be altered?

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Vanmaanen — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:14:15 -0000

Strange, previous comments by me were made in april (the 29th) of 2008.
Currently I am at almost 24.000 tweets (december 23rd, 2008)

I did look up this post yesterday, as I had a discussion on twitter noise. For some reason the date has now changed... I did not change/add the previous postings.

@louis Gray: Any chance of changing this back?

Best wishes for the holiday season and for 2009.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Vanmaanen — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:46:29 -0000

* Update: *
Check out Twitstat.com, it gives you real time Twitter analytics, shows items like;

- Top10 tweeters per day,
- most social (Percentage of users tweets that were a reply),
- most engaging (Ratio of replies to a user per tweet of that user),
- replies to,
- most happy, most angry, etc
- Your @replies (if you follow @twitstat)

My stats: http://www.twitstat.com/cgi...

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Vanmaanen — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:23:39 -0000

Interesting subject. Taking the time-limit of a month would indeed give a better result I guess.

Dutch style?
I read about research that in the Netherlands people tweet much more (more updates per day) than in the USA or UK for instance.

Looking at some of my top twitterazzi, the people I @ reply and interact with reveals high ratio's like >30 and even 44 (!). Very noisy by this ratio, but not annoying to me.

So maybe there are cultural differences in the way people use twitter as well. And also, more 'noisy' followers means more replies = more tweets. This will add up faster than the increase in followers.

My ratio of updates/followers is now 12,16 (3040 updates, 250 followers), see http://www.twitter.com/vanm... for my twitterpage.

: Marc

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Dr.Mani — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:13:56 -0000

Nice post, Louis.

You wrote:
"I feel if I "tweet" too often, those following will opt out or gain in annoyance."

I'd respectfully submit it has to do with WHAT you tweet about, and WHAT your 'followers' expect from you.

If I were to give you one winning stock tip after another on Twitter and that's the reason you follow me, would you object to my tweeting 7 times every minute? :)

And by the same token, if you follow me to learn how to optimally manage your time and find me tweeting only once a day, telling how I'm painting my garden fence, and giving you progress reports... well...

Just like any 2-way communication tool or service, Twitter following is a reflection of implicit promise and perceived value. When the 'match' is right, frequency becomes simply a side issue!

All success
Dr.Mani

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Derrick Kwa — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:56:48 -0000

I think tweets/followers is kind of flawed because tweets increase continuously. Followers don't (limit on attention, etc). The comparison almost seems akin to comparing number of blog posts to how many subscribers you have.

Tweets/month or some of the other metrics suggested in the comments would be much better.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Beatriz Mayoral — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:13:03 -0000

To avoid information overload it is important to have objective criteria to discriminate between sources of information to be able to find quality amid the quantity. The noise ratio that you propose is an excellent example of this criteria.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

dacort — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:32:19 -0000

The primary theme that I see reverberating through the comments is that everybody has a different way that they value Twitter. And Louis, you mention this in the first sentence of this post.

Metrics are fantastic, but everybody in this world is different and being able to collate the data in a fashion that is useful is one thing. But being able to give people the option to use the data as the choose is the more difficult task.

As the creator of TweetStats (http://tweetstats.com), I'm always looking at useful ways to represent data and it is definitely not an easy task. And while I'm trying to tackle it, I'm not sure if I'll be successful, but this...and many other metrics...are at play in the approach I am attempting to take.

In the end...we all use Twitter in wildly different ways. :)

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Stephanie Booth — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:10:45 -0000

manual trackback: http://climbtothestars.org/...

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Bryan Green — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:49:11 -0000

Man, my ratio is 23.35 (2078/89). Apparently I’m a Chatty Cathy talking to myself!

http://twitter.com/bryangreen

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Pascal Van Hecke — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:42:44 -0000

You might like the Twitter Quotient gimmick by a friend of mine
http://web.forret.com/tools...

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

CyndyA — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:08:47 -0000

Yes. ;) If I hadn't met you now, I'd probably have been doing some Duncan Riley-esque cussing. :D

I have my Twitter account set to only send me replies if I follow both people. I'm still not inundated with posts that way but am able to participate in conversations. I think if you removed all my replies, which have quite a bit of back-and-forth to them, my number would have been WAY lower.

Web 2.0 Expo killed my numbers, though. It's pushed me higher than Arrington for the month. I've already put my phone away. Time to be back in home mode!

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Steve — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:58:59 -0000

I have done a couple of experiments.

I created an account in January and posted to it twice. It now has thirty eight followers.

Ten days ago, I created an account on which I tweet a random line from a popular A-list blog to every five minutes, for a total of 2,284 updates as of this writing. It now has twenty six followers.

Given my experience, I would say there is a lot of "noise" following going on...

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Louis Gray — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:05:32 -0000

Cyndy, what do you mean by "this is what I'm talking about"? You mean liking me better offline than online? I'll have to be more careful. :-)

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Alex de Carvalho — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:52:46 -0000

The measure of conversation lies in people's number of DMs and @replies, data which are not available or difficult to quantify, respectively. The overall measure of participation lies in your engagement with others, through DMs, @replies, retweeting and "favoriting" items. The other stuff you tweet may be considered noise ... although these same tweets may be conversation starters or inspire someone in some way. However, if you don't tweet enough, your followers will lose context about you and you will become less visible ... and arguably, less interesting.

Rather than measuring "noise", perhaps we should be measuring "interestingness"? Arguably, the more followers you have, the more interesting you are.

By the way, Elliott Ng hits the nail right on the head, doesn't he?

Oh ... I'm a noisy (but middle ground) 1.75 with 3,256/1,862 ;)

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

tonym — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:49:00 -0000

Hi

Thanks for the thoughts. Two of mine:

a) Time, in the real world, has a reduced value in this type of calculation as this value is impacted by how many times people post per day.

b) In a similar calculation a few months ago we tried to include the number of people followed as well, hopefully, to give some indication of the "value" of each tweet.

followers / tweets * (followed * 'street cred')

'street cred' was a weighting value dependant on the number of google search results.

It was fun, even if our results were essentially meaningless...

Look forward to watching this conversation grow. If someone can work out some form of social value measurement, we could find more interesting people.

And fine tune our styles to suit our followers, perhaps?

Thanks
tony

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

J.P. Micek — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:32:00 -0000

Great effort Louis. And though my techie-ANAL-ist side loves what you did here, my social-influence common sense side sees these metrics HURTING rather than helping when it comes to using Twitter as a channel of influence.

Your well crafted numbers & research have focused everyone on general metrics instead of the passions, needs, and dreams of their Tribe. And that takes people (especially entrepreneurs) down a rabbit trail.

Why? For one thing, "noise" is relevant to a particular Tribe. Though most peeps would agree that someone who Tweets ONLY about their products or posts is a Molester, you cannot otherwise measure noise broadly. Each Tribe will have it's own definition of "noise."

Your #s might be better suited for an indicator of Tribal "impact" rather than "noise."

Thanks for the great work & terrific conversation starter!

@JPmicek

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

Sean Reiser — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:03:00 -0000

I was playing around with something similar taking into account the value of tweets you receive which I realize is rather subjective but in some respects a better measure. You're method assumes all posts are noise and non are signal. The Twitter Equation is an article I wrote on the subject a few weeks back.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

adrian chan — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:38:00 -0000

ps -- for more on this:

http://www.gravity7.com/blo...

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

adrian chan — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:37:00 -0000

Great conversation -- but I don't get the metric. I'm w/ others here on importance of a longitudinal measure. But more to the point IMHO wld be to distinguish signal/noise ratio. Reason being that treating posts as noise doesn't make sense.

Using the reputation score approach at tweeterboard, for example, we might use @ replies and @ citations as a way of distinguishing signal -- because both of those show that the post has been picked up.

The way twitter works there's too much bias in number of followers -- w/o mutually reciprocated friending followers we can't assume that # followers = attentive audience. Followers/following enhances a twitterer's presence: in fact it's best used as a presence or potential reach metric (hence it's popularity in measuring influence, tho that's problematic too).

Distinguishing signal/noise ratio would make more sense because it indicates the audience that's tuned in. And signal reach, that is a post that is cited by several, would indicate pass along/word of mouth, and would say something about the reach of a twitterer's influence and attention level of and engagement with audience. But to treat all posts as noise makes little sense to me...

tweeterboard's reputation score is interesting in this respect because it measures reciprocity. Again, it's compromised by fact that @ name posts are often missed if the followers aren't mutually connected.

Post number seems to indicate noise level or volume. (spinal tap moment -- 11 tweets/day = taphead?) So what if a person talks a lot? We want to know if they're being listened to -- and that would be signal strength. As measured by who's tuning in as well as who's rebroadcasting.

But on twitter there's always the problem of "if a tree falls in the forest"... What's noise if nobody hears it?

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

CyndyA — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:26:54 -0000

See, Louis, this is what I'm talking about. Describing me as a megaphone is inaccurate. Look at people with tons of followers, few that they follow, and rarely reply to @s unless it's from someone they follow. THAT is a megaphone. If you take a look at my Tweet Cloud without stripping the replies, the biggest blocks of text start with @. My Tweet count is high, but that's because I use it for conversations. I'd be willing to guess that more than 2/3 of my Tweets start with @. A megaphone implies blasting information at people, not increasing dialogue.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

louisgray — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:02:00 -0000

Elliott, I updated your Twitter link. Sorry about the typo. You make some good points, and others are as well. Looks like most don't agree with the Updates/Followers ratio which I'd been tracking, but we're always eager to hear more ideas.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

GraemeThickins — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:47:18 -0000

thanks, Lewis -- I forwarded this to Jonny Bentwood of the Technobabble 2.0 blog, who wants to do a ranking of analysts who Twitter

and, gee, fun to see my ratio of 4.84 puts me high in the "Converationalists" category, right there with Kedrosky

cheers,
Graeme
www.twitter.com/graemethickins

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

jaxxon33 — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:24:40 -0000

One mans noise is another mans signal.

I have wondered what constitutes noise as I try to find the best way to use Twitter.

Coming from a technical background where I spent a lot of time dealing with noise, your natural enemy in the wireless world, I have come to the conclusion that noise is defined by your perspective.

In reality, in regard to radio, noise is mainly made up of good signals that you are not trying to listen to at that time. We use a specific antenna and tuner to filter out the good signals we do not want, in order to receive the specific signal we do want.

I follow people for specific reasons and to me the relevant information they post is what I'm interested in. If they post tweets relating to what they are having for dinner, then I feel this shows me a little about their personality. As long as this superfluous chatter is kept to a minimum and the information or signal I am interested in is the focal point I am happy.

This may not be the case for everyone though, as I'm sure there are people who will be interested in the culinary habits of the people they follow, just not me.