Twitter Tools: How to Use Followerwonk

Followerwonk puts a phenomenal amount of useful information at your disposal, but without an understanding of its primary functions, you can miss out on several key insights that it has been designed to provide. Below are the five major functions of Followerwonk, and how to best use them for maximum benefit.

1. Search Twitter Bios

You can click on Followerwonk’s “Search Twitter Bios” tab to find the most popular Twitter accounts in your particular field of endeavor. For example, if you are a Search Engine Optimization specialist, you could type “SEO” into the search bar, and Followerwonk will return all of the Twitter accounts that feature the word “SEO” (or closely related keywords) in their Twitter profile text. Search results are normally sorted by popularity (i.e., number of followers), but you also have the option of sorting by other columns such as number of tweets, age of the account, number of accounts each profile is following or a proprietary metric known as “Social Authority,” which measures reach and popularity based on the general “buzz” surrounding that particular Twitter account. Followerwonk employs sophisticated filters to weed out as many spammy, non-active or brand-new accounts as possible. If you want to perform further sorting or in-depth analysis actions, you can export your search results as a CSV or Excel worksheet by clicking on the download icon at the top right corner of the search results.

2. Compare Users

This feature of Followerwonk is a veritable gold mine of information. You can plug in the Twitter accounts of two or three peers, industry leaders or even competitors to find out what type of overlap exists in terms of the subject matter of their tweets, as well as who they follow (or who follows them). This can be very helpful in determining what type of topics you should tweet about; it will enable you to position yourself as a source of unique information instead of an “echo” of what someone else has already said.

3. Analyze Followers

This feature enables you to obtain detailed stats on virtually every major aspect of any Twitter user’s followers. Some of these points of analysis include:

• A virtual map representing the various concentrations or locations of followers, broken down by region

• Gender distribution statistics of followers (based on analysis of profile text)

• Top followers ranked by influence score (helps you to identify the most influential followers of a given account)

• Account ages, following counts and follower counts

• Tweet recency stats (to see how active each follower is)

• Total tweet quantity levels (to determine total level of usage)

• Language statistics (e.g., how many followers speak a given language)

• Location and bio information presented in “word cloud” form

• Hours in which a given Twitter account is most active

4. Track Followers

Have you ever noticed how your Twitter follower count constantly fluctuates? This tab will help you analyze exactly how many followers you’ve gained or lost over a given period of time. Followerwonk will provide you with a detailed graph that shows you your total amount of daily new followers as well as daily lost followers, and then it furnishes a “net change” figure to help you determine whether or not you’re making progress in your overall follower count. Followerwonk also offers statistics for average followers gained on a daily basis, as well as a graph that shows you the number of days in which you had net gains versus net losses in your follower count.

5. Sort Followers

You can use this tab to discover, sort and analyze the followers of whatever Twitter account you choose to plug into the search box. As with the “Search Twitter Bios” function, you can sort followers by such stats as tweet count, account age, Social Authority, following or followers. You can also export this data into CSV or Excel format with a simple click, allowing you to customize your own lists for further analysis. Imagine if you downloaded a list of followers that are geographically close to where you live and have significant Social Authority scores. You could personally invite them to a local meetup and make some great new connections!
Perhaps one of Followerwonk’s strongest attributes is its intuitive interface and overall ease of use. Armed with the above insights, you can begin using this powerful software to dramatically increase your social reach and create exceptional influence for your brand.