Today is the first birthday of Twitter in the UK. Their birthday announcement they announce 10m active users in the UK.
Read also: 8 ways to improve your Twitter marketing with BirdSong.
Read also: Identifying Twitter followers with BirdSong
Link to the Twitter story on TNW
This figure of active users caught our eye. How do they define active? Twitter have not given us that figure.
With BirdSong we seek to analyse the behind the tweets and the followers so active accounts is an important measure. How many of Lady Gaga’s followers are ‘active’ accounts?
To achieve such a measure we would need to check each account and see how many updates they have made in the past x months (we think three) and then check to filter out automated or repetitive tweets. At present we have 51 million Twitter accounts under the microscope for a planned update to show the number of active followers on any given account.
Until then, we can share some numbers we are looking at. From a base of 48 million Twitter accounts picked at random (but including Lady Gaga), 19 million Twitter accounts have less than 10 followers and have tweeted less than 10 times.
In other words [by that measure] 38% of all Twitter accounts measured were in inactive. Taking this sample size and applying it to the total Twitter audience (a reported 140 million accounts) that would give a figure of 87.5 million active Twitter accounts globally.
This calculation was based on one measurement and we are working to improve the validity of the tests. We also need to bear in mind that Twitter do not actively publish their definition of active so these figures may not be perfect. However, until we have such data should we assume that 38% of our Twitter followers are inactive and of little value?
BirdSong works to identify the data behind the tweets to help brands plan and improve their social strategy. Sign up is free and the first report is on us.
