Twitter Analytics 

and Sports Bloggers 

Key Terms :

Traffic : Number of users visiting a site.

Data : Individual facts, statistics, or items

of

information.

Diffusion of Influence : The way in

which an idea or innovation spreads

through a society.

Analytics : the analysis of data, typically

large sets of business data, by the use

of mathematics, statistics, and computer

software.

Influence : the capacity or power of

persons or things to be a compelling

force on or produce effects on the

actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of

others.

Influencer : a person who has the power

to influence many people, as through

social media or traditional media.

Pass-along value : An idea or

innovation that is deemed worth

spreading to others.

Summary:

It is no secret that blogs are

losing readers to platforms like

Facebook and Twitter. As described by

the New York Times , “Blogs were once

the outlet of choice for people who

wanted to express themselves online.

But with the rise of sites like Facebook

and Twitter, they are losing their allure

for many people — particularly the

1

younger generation.” (2)

Bloggers are

now challenged with finding new ways

to bring in consumers. One tool

bloggers should be using to encourage

site traffic is Twitter.

Blogging started roughly 15 years

ago when sites such as Blogger and

LiveJournal gained notoriety. People

flocked to blogs due to the appeal and

convenience of having online

conversations with a relatable

community. By the end of 2004,

Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the

word of the year. (2)

Sites like Facebook and Twitter

provide consumers with a social hub to

post all the things they would have

previously posted on a blog. The small

talk that was once delegated to

topic-specific blogging forums has

mostly moved to social media sites.

Thus, sports blogs have been steadily

decreasing in site traffic since the

immersion of social media

conglomerates like Facebook and

Twitter.

That doesn’t mean that sports

blogs don’t exist, however. More serious

bloggers turn to forums such as

WordPress to have productive

discussions. Toni Schneider, chief

executive of Automattic, the company

that commercializes the WordPress

blogging software, explains that

“bloggers often use Facebook and

Twitter to promote their blog posts to a

wider audience. Rather than being

competitors”, he said, “they are

complementary.” (2)

Those who are committed to

blogging should heed Toni Schneider’s

advice. Treating Twitter as a tool rather

than a competitor will help sports

bloggers reach wider audiences and

2

increase their site traffic. All it takes is

an understanding of the diffusion of

influence through social sites.

Types of Influence:  The diffusion of influence has

never been easier to measure thanks to

the introduction of Twitter analytics.

Original theories on the diffusion of

influence predicted that by using social

influencers like celebrities, “one may

achieve a large-scale chain-reaction of

influence driven by word-of-mouth, with

a very small marketing cost.” (3)

More

recent theories suggest that the diffusion

of influence is more closely associated

with “(i) the interpersonal relationship

among ordinary users and (ii) the

readiness of a society to adopt an

innovation (Watts and Dodds 2007;

Domingos and Richardson 2001).” (1)

Testing these theories shows that

certain types of influence have more of

an impact on their audience and thus

should be used by bloggers trying to

gain an audience.

Data from “Measuring User

Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower

Fallacy” analyzes a dataset consisting of

2 billion follow links among 54 million

users who produced a total of 1.7 billion

tweets. This analysis resulted in three

major findings: (1)

1) Indegree influence represents

popularity of a user, as the

number of followers for a user

directly indicates the size of the

audience for that user. Retweets

represent the content value of

one’s tweets. If one is able to

generate content with pass-along

value, their account becomes

valued for its content and thus

has retweet influence. Finally,

3

mentions represent the name

value of a user. Mention influence

is measured through the number

of retweets containing one’s

name. This indicates the ability of

a user to engage others in

conversation. The top users

based on these three measures

have little overlap.

2) Influence varies across topics.

The most influential users hold

significant influence over a

variety of topics. For example,

News based twitter accounts

discuss a variety of topics and

are regarded as credible sources.

3) Ordinary users can gain

influence by focusing on a single

topic and posting creative and

insightful tweets that are

perceived as valuable by others,

as opposed to simply conversing

with others.

Using this information, we can begin to

draw conclusions about how sports

bloggers should use Twitter to increase

site traffic.

Assuming the purpose of

blogging is to create the largest

community of like-minded people

sharing ideas, then the most appropriate

form of influence for sports bloggers

would be retweet influence. This is

because accounts that have a high

degree of retweet influence are valued

for the content of their tweets. If an

individual’s account is valued for the

content of its tweets, the account

becomes an influencer. Influencers have

the ability to influence other influencers,

thus creating a word-of-mouth wave of

influence described by Katz and

Lazarsfeld. (3)

As stated in the report

4

Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The

Million Follower Fallacy , “By identifying

and convincing a small number of

influential individuals, a viral campaign

can reach a wide audience at a small

cost. The theory spread well beyond

academia and has been adopted in

many marketing businesses, e.g.,

RoperASW and Tremor (Gladwell 2002;

Berry and Keller 2003).” (1) This is an

empirically effective way to promote

one’s business, or in this case a blog,

through social media sites such as

Twitter.

Twitter Analytics: 

Twitter offers some basic

analytics tools to allow users to see the

impact of a tweet:

https://business.twitter.com/en/analytics/

tweet-activity-dashboard.html . If you

wish to become a media influencer and

bring traffic to your blog, you can use

the site above to monitor the following

things:

● The number of impressions: the

number of possible accounts that

can see your tweet.

● The number of engagements: the

number of people interacting with

your tweet (liking, retweeting or

mention of).

● The engagement rate

(impressions divided by

engagements): this will tell you

what percentage of people

viewing your content are

engaging with it.

● Video views: The number of

views the video in your tweet

receives.

● Link clicks: The number of clicks

the link attached to your tweet

receives. This measure is

5

crucial for sports bloggers using

twitter to bring traffic to their

sites.

● Photo or video clicks: The

number of clicks the photo or

video attached to your tweet

receives.

● Likes: The number of likes your

tweet receives.

● Retweets: The number of times

your tweet is retweeted.

In addition to monitoring all these

things, you’ll also be able to see how

many of these engagements you

average per day, and how your

engagement rate and number of

impressions changes throughout the

month.

When you learn what resonates

with your audience, you can start

tweeting similar content and becoming a

social influencer, which will ultimately

bring new users to your site.

Twitter also offers a service (4) that

allows account holders to analyze the

following:

● Follower growth: The number of

new followers you have gained

over a certain period of time

● Followers’ interests: What

content resonates with your

followers; what your most

successful tweets are.

● Followers’ demographics:

Language, gender, and location.

Certain accounts will also be able

to see data around their followers with

regards to consumer behaviors,

lifestyles, and mobile devices. Checking

in with your audience as it grows and

evolves will help you create content

that’s relevant, while also boosting

engagement.

6

Conclusion:

Blogging popularity has been

declining since the introduction of larger

social networking sites such as

Facebook and Twitter. It’s simple; if

bloggers wish to increase site traffic,

they should use social media sites like

Twitter. Sports bloggers in particular

have the potential to thrive on Twitter, as

sports tends to be an extremely

common topic of discussion. By

measuring the degree of retweet

influence generated through Twitter's

analytical tools, bloggers can see how

their tweets are affecting their target

audience and how that is affecting their

blog. If bloggers don't do this, they will

likely continue to lose traffic to large

social media sites. If they do, their blog

will feasibly increase in traffic.

More Info:

1. Cha, Meeyoung. "Measuring User

Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower

Fallacy. http://bit.ly/234q5gR .

Proceedings of the Fourth International

AAAI Conference on Weblogs and

Social Media, n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

2. Kopytoff, Verne "Blogs Wane as the

Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter." The

New York Times(2011): n. pag. 20 Feb.

2011. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

3. Katz, E., and Lazarsfeld, P. 1955.

Personal Influence: The Part Played by

People in the Flow of Mass

Communications. New York: The Free

Press.

4. Twitter Business Analytics:

https://business.twitter.com/en/analytics/

tweet-activity-dashboard.html

https://business.twitter.com/en/analytics/

audience-insights.html

7

Writer Biographies 

Brandon White I am a senior Journalism major with minors in French and Philosophy. As a pre-law student, I plan on obtaining a law degree, and eventually an L.L.M. after graduation. This summer, I worked with a sports blog called SPORTalk, writing anywhere from 5-10 articles per week. I was also an intern for Transitions Optical in Paris, France during the summer of 2011. I was managing Transitions’ social media presence while helping out in marketing meetings. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is my hometown, having lived there for 14 years. However, I was born in Houston, Texas and lived in Paris, France for three years. My parents currently reside in Switzerland, and my 19-year-old brother, Connor, plays golf at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. After graduating from law school, I plan on becoming a contract lawyer and eventually working for a sports organization managing contracts.

Brandon Wickel I am a junior Media Analytics major with a minor in Italian. This past summer I interned with a PR company called BrandLink Communications in New York City. In this position I helped organize and execute social media campaigns and PR events. I was born in Riverdale, New York but moved north to Westchester when I was very young. My oldest sister, Kelsey, completed her graduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and now works for the NYC parks department. The youngest of my two sisters, Taylor, graduated from Elon in 2014 and now works in Virginia as an event planner. Upon graduation I intend to pursue a career in media analytics for businesses attempting to develop an online presence. I believe the skills I learned at BrandLink Communications in combination with my upbringing, family influence, and skills I have come to learn since BrandLink Communications establishes me as an emerging media analytics professional.

8