Twitter is undoubtedly one of the biggest social media platforms out there today. Even with all the Google + hype and the new Facebook developments, Twitter is still unrivaled as a true number one social media contender with its unique, 140 character interface and effortless functionality.
As Twitter continues to become a staple in the social media ranks it is of little wonder that Internet marketers are so focused on dominating it. So, how do you dominate your niche on Twitter? Well the answers simple, you just have to make your strategy rather ‘wonky’…
What Is Follower Wonk?
What on earth is all this ‘wonky’ business about? Well Follower Wonk is a Twitter based social media monitoring website that is getting very popular on the web, targeted at bloggers, businesses and brands of all niches and sizes.
Follower Wonk is a credit based tool that runs reports on anything from the habits of your Followers, the activity of your competitors, the popularity of key thought leaders, and informs you on who the big players are in any subject, niche or industry.
As an analytical platform Follower Wonk has a great deal of potential to not only track your own Twitter progress, but to keep tabs on others, and help you target where you should be building powerful relationships.
Targeting Powerful Relationships
Follower Wonk allows you to search for those key figures in niches that you want to be in cahoots with, those guys you’d love to have a beer with, and most importantly those folks you want to do business with. A great way to do this is through the “Search Twitter bios” function.
Let’s do a trial. For instance, what if you want to find the key players in the video production industry? To do so you might search the term “Video production” and here’s what you’d get:
You’re bound to get a few companies come up in your searches, and undoubtedly you’re going to cross a few spam accounts, but ultimately it should give you a clear indication of who the influential players are in the niche you’re looking for.
From this particular example you can see a few big Twitter players in the video production world; Adam Leventhal, Greg Thomas, Simon Malcolm, Jason Anderson, Chris Portscheller and Dave Norona. These users are of no connection to me. As you can see by the ‘Stop’ signs it tells me that I’m not Following them and they aren’t Following me. In fact I would never have heard of these individuals were it not for this search.
What this search means is that not only can I now Follow them, but I can see that an @ or ReTweet from one of these individuals could get my account and my content out there to thousands of Twitter users. These users are potentially Tweeters that I’ve never came into contact with before or may never do without this search.
You can now start to generate more Twitter Followers from building relationships with influential thought leaders all thanks to this tool. You can perhaps begin to do business with these users, gain guest blogging opportunities and maybe even form a strong friendship with them. All the while you’re status can be begin to improve through these relationships to help put you on a similar social level as those influential characters.
Analyse The Followers Of Key Figures
Follower Wonk seems to embody the almost stalker nature of Twitter quite well as it allows you to gain data from Twitter users in minutes. This particular data could help you find out who the influential audiences are behind those key niche figures. These audiences members undoubtedly helped get those thought leaders to the social media position they are in now, and could be just as valuable to you too.
To run a full report on the Followers of WebTrafficROI (who have a considerably large Twitter presence) could take some time for ‘free’ Follower Wonk users:
So let’s take a look at a sample of 1,000 followers:
For the purpose of this article I’ll keep all the data presented as the data ‘free’ users can generate.
Follower Wonk brings up 7 Charts and a few ‘Word Clouds’ for these 1,000 Followers, but this is a pie chart representing how often WebTrafficROI Followers Tweet. As you can see 18..1% of their Followers Tweet daily and 5.3% Tweet almost every hour. These users are the active Twitter Followers you want to get on your side.
So, how do you track these socialite Followers down? Follower Wonk simply tells you. If you click on the “1 to 24 hours” hyperlink you get something that looks like this:
A whole ‘hit-list’ of those socially active users. Follower Wonk scores those users in regards to their credibility (or at least what the site deems a credible users, which is open to debate), indicating to you the real Twitter users you need to start making connections with. Pretty nifty right?
A Healthy Dose Of Competition
The last thing big thing Follower Wonk provides Internet marketers with is some very good comparative tools. Not only can you compare the Followers and activity of your competitors, but you can also see where their strategies are succeeding or failing. This gives you the chance to up your game or capitalize on their unfortunate losses at every turn.
Here’s a quick look at Follower Wonk’s metrics:
I know what you’re thinking, “how can I gain the Followers they have if I can’t see them?” and no doubt “how can I capitalize on the Followers they’ve lost if I don’t know who they are?” Well as always Follower Wonk shows you exactly who those individuals are:
Here we can see the Followers Follower Wonk has lost over the past 30 days. Perhaps these may be spammy accounts, perhaps they may be accounts unhappy with the Twitter activity of Follower Wonk, but if you are a social media data company you could certainly approach them to find out.
If you could find out where your competitors are failing socially (and perhaps even in the business world) you could quickly get a hold of some very powerful information indeed, not to mention increase your Followers by befriending those Followers disillusioned in the activity of your competitors.
Summary
Follower Wonk doesn’t half offer some juicy data for Internet marketers to get their teeth into. The information on display appears to be extremely powerful for Internet marketers and even more beneficial to Twitter users trying to grow their Followers and become a strong thought leader in their niche.
If your Twitter Internet marketing strategy isn’t ‘wonky’, then I’d be inclined to diagnose your social media approaches as pretty darn lopsided.
I certainly recommend having a play around with the free features on display for yourself.
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