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Using Twitter Lists to Judge Influence October 31, 2009

Posted by Todd Zeigler in Bivings, Twitter

If you’ve used Twitter for awhile, you know that judging the influence of a Twitter user by their number of followers is a dicey proposition.  Lots of Twitter users are obsessed with their number of followers, and work to inflate their stats in ways too numerous to mention here.  The end result is that some Twitter users will have thousands of followers who consist mostly of other social media “experts” and spam Twitter accounts.  While the follower number may look impressive, these folks aren’t really influential because no one is listening.  A Twitter account with 100 engaged followers is much more influential than one followed by thousands of disengaged users.

listsI think Twitter Lists will end up helping separate the men from the boys when it comes to influence.  In addition to seeing a Twitter users follower count, we can now see the number of other Twitter users who have added them to lists (example to the right).  I would argue that getting added to a list is a bigger deal than simply getting someone to follow you.

People follow folks for lots of reasons.  Out of courtesy.  Because they like their avatar.  To get them to follow them back.  Adding someone to a list is more of an endorsement – you are saying this person is someone worth listening to.  While I’m sure people will now work to game their “lists” number, in the short term I think it provides a really interesting insight into how respected Twitter users are.

Along these lines, my colleague J.W. Crump from our ImpactWatch team posted an interesting look at the Top 100 Twitter User list.  He basically reordered the top users list to sort by the number of lists folks are on, as opposed to follower count.  I’ve copied the results below.  I take some comfort in the fact Barack Obama is the most listed user, as opposed to Ashton Kusher who is the most followed Twitter user, and that Kim Kardashian rank plummets in this view.

Twitter User Followers Rank Listed Rank Difference
Barack Obama 7 1 6
Pete Cashmore 31 2 29
CNN Breaking News 4 3 1
Ellen DeGeneres 3 4 -1
Taylor Swift 33 5 28
John Mayer 9 6 3
Ashton Kutcher 1 7 -6
Britney Spears 2 8 -6
A Googler 23 9 14
Twitter 5 10 -5
Oprah Winfrey 10 11 -1
The Onion 21 12 9
Perez Hilton 40 13 27
The New York Times 18 14 4
Shaq 11 15 -4
Rainn Wilson 41 16 25
Jimmy Fallon 14 17 -3
Ashley Tisdale 16 18 -2
Ryan Seacrest 8 19 -11
Felicia Day 49 20 29
Lance Armstrong 15 21 -6
Lily Rose Allen 30 22 8
Coldplay 17 23 -6
Al Gore 22 24 -2
Demi Moore 12 25 -13
Pete Wentz 32 26 6
TIME 27 27 0
Kim Kardashian 6 28 -22
Sean Combs 13 29 -16
Ashlee Simpson Wentz 24 30 -6
Mariah Carey 19 31 -12
Chelsea Lately 29 32 -3
NPR Politics 35 33 2
Mandy Moore 42 34 8
Tony Hawk 25 35 -10
Martha Stewart 34 36 -2
People Magazine 39 37 2
E! Online 28 38 -10
Dr. Drew 36 39 -3
Sara Bareilles 38 40 -2
NBA 43 41 2
Dre’ 26 42 -16
50cent 20 43 -23
Tony Robbins 50 44 6
John McCain 45 45 0
Downing Street 48 46 2
Whole Foods Market 44 47 -3
BBC Click 47 48 -1
Hammer 37 49 -12
Brooke Burke 46 50 -4
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  1. +1 Vote -1 Vote +1Pregled zanimljivih linkova za 31. October 2009. - Manjgura.hr – Public Relations – Odnosi s javnošću - October 31st, 2009 at 6:36 pm

  2. Vote -1 Vote +1Pregled zanimljivih linkova za 31. listopada 2009. - Manjgura.hr – Public Relations – Odnosi s javnošću - October 31st, 2009 at 6:39 pm

  3. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter strokes egos with a new A-List popularity contest - October 31st, 2009 at 9:21 pm

  4. Vote -1 Vote +1Howard Lindzon » Blog Archive » Twitter Lists…What do YOU Think? - October 31st, 2009 at 11:13 pm

  5. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists Resurrect The “A-List”? - November 1st, 2009 at 12:39 am

  6. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists as an Influence Measure? | The Noisy Channel - November 1st, 2009 at 1:40 am

  7. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) - November 1st, 2009 at 2:39 am

  8. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) | Free SEO Advice - November 1st, 2009 at 3:15 am

  9. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter lists, I am not bothered - November 1st, 2009 at 6:59 am

  10. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) | Jack Script - November 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am

  11. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) « TechTalk - November 1st, 2009 at 9:55 am

  12. Vote -1 Vote +1Linkpost | 11.1.2009 « NeYeni.Net – [ yeni olan ne varsa ] - November 1st, 2009 at 11:49 am

  13. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) - Brian Swichkow’s Blog - November 1st, 2009 at 12:10 pm

  14. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter News – Twitter Lists | TWITTER BLAB - November 1st, 2009 at 12:15 pm

  15. Vote -1 Vote +1Wat ga jij doen met Twitter lists? « Tim van Letht - November 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm

  16. Vote -1 Vote +1Much Ado About Twitter Lists | Marketing Conversation™ - November 1st, 2009 at 4:41 pm

  17. Vote -1 Vote +1SociaListed » Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) - November 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 am

  18. Vote -1 Vote +1Le Twitter Lists come strumento di ranking - Geekissimo - November 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 am

  19. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists: Only You Can Help Mashable Beat Barack Obama :) | NASZAKLASA - November 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 am

  20. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists are Teh Awesome - November 2nd, 2009 at 10:01 am

  21. Vote -1 Vote +1Why Twitter Lists ARE NOT the New Ranking System in Social Media « emergent by design - November 2nd, 2009 at 10:18 am

  22. Vote -1 Vote +1How Should Tweets Be Ranked in Search Engine Results? « I’m Not Actually a Geek - November 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 am

  23. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists are Teh Awesome | seo cloak - November 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am

  24. Vote -1 Vote +1iNews » Blog Archive » Le Twitter Lists come strumento di ranking - November 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 am

  25. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists are Teh Awesome | stream4.me - November 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 pm

  26. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter’s “Listed” Stat: Is It a Measure of Influence? - November 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm

  27. Vote -1 Vote +1How Should Tweets Be Ranked in Search Engine Results? | CloudAve - November 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm

  28. Vote -1 Vote +1SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 2, 2009 - November 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm

  29. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter, Authority and Search Engine Ranking: An Exploration « The SiliconANGLE - November 2nd, 2009 at 8:41 pm

  30. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists | Brian Solis - PR 2.0 - November 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 pm

  31. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter List Strategy Examples | Paul Kortman - November 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 am

  32. Vote -1 Vote +1Bookmarks for November 1st through November 3rd - November 3rd, 2009 at 9:51 am

  33. Vote -1 Vote +1pks4» Blog Archive » Linkpost | 11.1.2009 - November 3rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm

  34. Vote -1 Vote +1Bookmarks for November 3rd through November 4th - November 4th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

  35. Vote -1 Vote +1links for 2009-11-04 | Company K Media - November 4th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

  36. Vote -1 Vote +1Top 10 Climate Change Twitter Lists You Want to Follow | Thoughtpick Blog - November 7th, 2009 at 9:53 am

  37. Vote -1 Vote +1Analyzing Twitter Lists-Follower Ratio As An Indicator of Influence | Skeptic Geek - November 7th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

  38. Vote -1 Vote +1Celebrity Twitter Accounts Among Most Listed Twitter Accounts :: Anything about Everything! - November 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

  39. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists – Separating Ego and “Influence” From Genuine Utility - November 8th, 2009 at 7:53 pm

  40. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists – Separating Ego and “Influence” From Genuine Utility | b-roll.net - November 8th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

  41. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists and Influence: Shut up, Relax, and Measure Quality | wordpost - November 9th, 2009 at 4:04 am

  42. Vote -1 Vote +1What IF We Redefined Influence? The Evolution of the Influence Factor in Social Media | Brian Solis - PR 2.0 - November 11th, 2009 at 8:47 am

  43. Vote -1 Vote +1This Week in Twitter for 11/13/2009 « Church Mojo - November 16th, 2009 at 1:24 am

  44. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists are Teh Awesome | Technoinspire Blog - December 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 am

  45. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter Lists…What do YOU Think? « Social Leverage - December 13th, 2009 at 11:21 am

Comments

  1. Vote -1 Vote +1Meryl K Evans - October 31st, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    This sounds logical and I can see how lists indicate more influence than following. But on the other hand, some of us have followed so many people, it will take a while to get everyone classified into a group. But there will be some who don’t fall into any of my lists.

  2. Vote -1 Vote +1Dr Rand Pink - October 31st, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    I’m on Barbara Walter’s lisp

  3. Vote -1 Vote +1Milind Alvares - October 31st, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    The thing you don’t consider, is that it’s far easier to create lists than it is to get followed by spammers. So all the ‘media spert’ has to do is create a fake account and list away. Maybe Twitter will realise this method of gaming the system and make sure one user can only account for a single list count. I’m just saying.

  4. Vote -1 Vote +1Twitter_Tips - October 31st, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    The # of lists vs # of followers ratio is a similarly interesting metric: http://j.mp/2xDneH

  5. Vote -1 Vote +1Fleep Tuque - October 31st, 2009 at 8:04 pm

    I think this might be a useful indicator in the long term, but I’m with Meryl, it’s going to take me a long time to get all the people I follow on lists. It’s pretty slow going so far!

  6. Vote -1 Vote +1loki - October 31st, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    i’m not sure i’m following the logic here. if one can game the system by inflating the number of followers, what’s stopping them from gaming the system by inflating the number of lists they appear on?

  7. Vote -1 Vote +1anon - October 31st, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Shit My Dad Says should be No. 5.

  8. Vote -1 Vote +1Greg - October 31st, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    The data used to compile this is already old. Mashable is not #2 anymore and is likely to slip out of the top ten because celebrities are rising fast. taylorswift13, TheEllenShow, ladygaga have already passed mashable and ddlovato is about to. The only reason that tech people ranked high early on is because lots of tech people among the first people to get access to lists. This will change now that lists have gone wide.

  9. Vote -1 Vote +1Lucretia Pruitt - October 31st, 2009 at 9:34 pm

    It’s a nice thought, but much easier to game lists than followers. Since one doesn’t actually have to ever view the list once it’s made, there’s no reason for gamers to not create a shadow Twitter account that has dozens of differently named lists with the same people on them.
    Unfortunately, it’s easier to game list numbers than followers. Simple matter of clicking the multiple checkboxes to add someone’s name to dozens of lists at once.
    It’s as bad a metric as followers. RTs are a better one.

  10. +2 Vote -1 Vote +1Kasey Skala - October 31st, 2009 at 10:03 pm

    Pete Cashmore is the only person on this list worth following. Twitter Lists has very little, if anything, to do with influence.

  11. +1 Vote -1 Vote +1Sorry - October 31st, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    sorry – lists are NO better than the suggested user list. naturally mashable will be on more lists than others because of their massive suggested user list following.

  12. -2 Vote -1 Vote +1Jay S. Daughtry - November 1st, 2009 at 12:01 am

    I think it’s interesting that there are so many similarities in the Top 50 of both the followers rankings and the listed rankings. I wonder what a good solid ratio of listed to followers is or will be after more have had an opportunity to utilize this new feature. I am @FederalSandbox and have been listed 18 times so far and have just under 1400 followers.

  13. Vote -1 Vote +1@lakers_sth - November 1st, 2009 at 1:29 am

    @shitmydadsays is the #5 most listed account on twitter. Easy to miss since he’s currently ranked 235th with only 650K followers. My guess is it would put it at the top of the followers to lists ratio however.

  14. Vote -1 Vote +1Andrew Mueller - November 1st, 2009 at 1:41 am

    I agree that in a perfect world lists is a much better measure of influence than the number of followers that someone has, but just like follower counts have been gamed, so will lists. In the near future you will see automated systems for reciprocal listing on list. Also people will reciprocate as a social courtesy.

    Both the number of followers and the number of lists one is on are poor measures of influence and the predominant reason is that influence resides in context to presumed expertise.

    There are domains of influence in which a person could be extremely influential and other domains of influence where they may have very little influence at all. Lets take Barak Obama, he would have a huge influence if he were to say that there is a raised security threat and that Americans should not fly, but comparatively little influence if he were to say that kids should be careful of what they post on Facebook. He is influential in the domain of national security and not so much in the domain of Social matters of child.

  15. +1 Vote -1 Vote +1Justin P - November 1st, 2009 at 9:27 am

    I agree w/ the premise, but there needs to be additional metrics. Most of these users were on the Twitter SUL from the start and thus are artificially influential. I think the ratio of lists to followers may be a better metric.

  16. Vote -1 Vote +1Mark Dykeman - November 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am

    Lucretia has an excellent point: the lists can still be gamed and gamed more easily than trying to grab followers.

  17. Vote -1 Vote +1Robert Scoble - November 1st, 2009 at 10:02 am

    Your list is incomplete. My account has 2400+ listings and should be on this list. I never have been on the Suggested User List, by the way, unlike most of these.

  18. Vote -1 Vote +1Daniel Tunkelang - November 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am

    Like others here, I think list count makes even less sense as an influence measure than follower count–and I’m not a fan of either. Both are too gameable. But perhaps the list names play a role similar to anchor text on the open web.

    More at http://thenoisychannel.com/200.....e-measure/

  19. Vote -1 Vote +1Kyle Thill - November 1st, 2009 at 11:07 am

    In that lists require action to be taken by a user I agree somewhat. You could also argue that only certain types of users will put lists to use, thereby skewing the influence theory.

  20. Vote -1 Vote +1William Mougayar - November 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am

    How about traffic on a list as a metric? I think that ought to be a measure of its quality and stickability.
    “List Analytics”, anyone?

  21. Vote -1 Vote +1leoabeta - November 1st, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    Thanks so much! I’ve looked everywhere for this! You’re amazing!

  22. Vote -1 Vote +1Web Ideas - November 1st, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Useful and fresh post

  23. Vote -1 Vote +1@lakers_sth - November 1st, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    Mougayar – In making the ability to follow a list, Twitter has created yet another metric that makes this all the more complex. Does being on a list that has a bunch of followers mean more than being on a list that doesn’t?

    btw – according to favstar, @shitmydadsays has 3 of the top 4 most favorited tweets of all time (including the top one). The odd tweet out? Obama thanking everyone for helping him win the election. LOL.

  24. Vote -1 Vote +1Barbara Ballard - November 1st, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    I’m especially curious not about lists, but about the quality of the list. It’s easy to get on a list of local Twitterers or an exhaustive list of everybody in a field or celebrities or something.

    But what does it mean when a particular list itself has many followers?

    And what impact does the number of people on the list have? Does anybody read a list of 300 people? 500? Do the followers of a 300 person list read it, or keep it for future reference?

    I made a list not for myself, not as marketing my company, but as a public service. It’s a list of people and organizations who frequently write about mobile design. And it has followers. What does this say about the people on the list? (it’s at @barbaraballard/mobile-design )

    Does it make sense to talk more about long tail then celebrities?

  25. Vote -1 Vote +1AJ Kohn - November 1st, 2009 at 10:44 pm

    I don’t think lists have anything to do with influence. The real impetus for lists is to help you tame the river, to turn data into information. It’s a way for each individual to help access and make sense of all those Tweets.

    Using that user defined taxonomy as a way to calculate influence just doesn’t compute.

    And by making ‘Listed’ public you turn it into a competition. So any semblance of using it as a real metric goes out the window as people beg, trade and scam their way into Listed numbers.

    Lists may help me narrow my river but as a public vehicle they’re nearly useless.

    More at: http://www.blindfiveyearold.co.....ompetitive

  26. -1 Vote -1 Vote +1elucid - November 2nd, 2009 at 7:47 am

    List are great especially for those who know how to use them. I have two great list for you to follow, plus we love being listed too!

    http://twitter.com/elucidmarke.....networkers

    http://twitter.com/democrat2012/dc

    NICE POST and im going for the Mashable team for the “War of Fail Whales” lol

  27. Vote -1 Vote +1Mark Drapeau - November 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 am

    Wow, so what? People with lots of followers are also on lots of lists, go figure. You are not getting at the really important question with that list above.

  28. Vote -1 Vote +1Netnode.net - November 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    Interesting stuff to ponder!!

  29. Vote -1 Vote +1Mark - December 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Thanks again for a nice site.

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