Why 61st out of 415 on Twitter is a good result

I’ve just found out that I’m ranked 61 out of 415 Twitterers in the Edinburgh area. Ash is languishing at 146. Top in our area is Ewan McIntosh with 2762 followers compared to my humble 80-odd, as that’s the stat that counts.

For a social networking fan like me, 61 out of 415 is not exactly a terrific ranking, but even at this modest level Twitter has been able to produce results for me. In my online persona of Mrsboogie I’ve been able to start dialogue with some bloggers and industry figures who would otherwise be far too high-falutin’ for a marketing hunter-gatherer like me. I’ve also managed to get myself onto a list of ‘people to follow on Twitter’ if you’re interested in the topic of Cloud Computing and that’s quite some achievement for a self-confessed non-geek. Admittedly it’s not the gateway to everything, but it means that any time I tweet about something cloud-related, it’s picked up by a group of the very people I want to reach. So even if my followers presently number but a mere 80+, that’s a good core group to be able to contact instantly and I’ll put in some work on growing that group when I start organising CloudCamp Scotland for 25 March this year. In fact, I’ll report on the growth of my followers by the time that event comes round.

Having explained how Twitter works for me, I’m amazed by the figures in this US marketing study which finds that 37% of small businesses don’t use social networking, so they’re not even using Facebook or LinkedIn or any of the other online communities. But as a friend of mine observed, “I wouldn’t blame the actual companies that are not aware of it. How can you if you are in retail or manufacturing and busy to keep your business afloat against the slowdown of the economy and the threat of China?” Fair point.

Encouragingly 25% say that they plan to use it more for online marketing, a higher percentage than for any other online marketing format. When most businesses are short of money it makes so much sense to leverage these free global services, especially when you can measure the effects so quickly and instantly establish dialogue with the people who are interested in what you have to say.

If you want to see Twitter in action, follow Mrsboogie and I’ll show you how to make it work for your business.