Get the Facts About Social Media
If you write about social media often, you might find yourself needing a few statistics. The following sources will give you the most current data available about social networking usage.
Overall Stats
The following sites are a good place to start for statistics about most of your favorite social networks.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a good first stop to get the latest stats about social networks. Their pages usually have each social networks launch date, current number of users, founders, revenue, traffic, and other information as applicable. You can see what I mean on Wikipedia pages for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and so forth. Be sure to click on the number next to each stat to see the official source for more information.
Quantcast
If you’re looking for traffic and demographics, Quantcast is a great source. See some interesting information about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, and so forth. Use the search box to find even more domains.
The Top 10
Want to know which social networks are the most popular now in the US? Find out on Hitwise. You can also see most popular search engines, search terms, and politicians.
All About Facebook
Facebook seems to have the most data out and about on the web. Here are some great sources.
Facebook Fact Sheet
Facebook itself offers some basic statistics about their network on their company info fact sheet. it includes the current number of employees, number of monthly and daily active users, board member names, and locations of Facebook offices worldwide.
Inside Facebook Gold
Need some in-depth statistics about Facebook? Inside Facebook has a gold membership that allows you access to the latest demographics about Facebook usage. While their membership is currently closed to new enrollment, you can still get some interesting stats for free on their membership page including the number of users in the top 25 countries on Facebook and global audience demographics.
Facebook Pages Leaderboard
Need to know what Facebook page has the most fans? AllFacebook has a Facebook Page Leaderboard with the answer. You can also see the pages with the fastest growth.
Facebook Apps
Want to know how many people are using Farmville and other popular Facebook apps? Check out the App Data Leaderboard, Top Developers, Top Gainers Today, and Top Gainers This Week.
All About Twitter
Not quite as detailed as the information on Facebook, but the following are stats about Twitter.
What is Twitter
There aren’t too many interesting stats on the What is Twitter page, but the ones that might catch your eye are the number of tweets per day and active users!
Top Twitter Users
TwitterCounter has a page for the most followed Twitter accounts. The top 20, with exception to Barack Obama, YouTube, and Twitter en espanol, are mostly celebrities.
Social Statistics
Want to see the top Google+ people, pages, and posts? Social Statistics has all of that information on their site.
All About LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s About Us page covers the latest LinkedIn facts including overall membership plus breakdowns of the number of members in 14 different countries.
YouTube Statistics
YouTube’s Statistic page has tons of neat information including how many hours of video content is uploaded every minute, how many videos are viewed per day, unique users per month, user demographics, and more. There is even a section about social usage of YouTube such as the number of people connecting their accounts to other services (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), how many people auto share, and more.
What sites do you use to check social media statistics? Please share your resources in the comments!
5 Things You Can Learn by Drilling Down on Traffic Sources in Google Analytics
Did you know there is more to the Referral Traffic Sources in your Google Analytics than just the referral domains themselves? Here are a few things you can learn by clicking on some of the domains listed under your Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals.
What Twitter User Really Sends You Traffic & Your Most Popular Posts on Twitter
Want to find out who is really sending the most traffic to your website via Twitter? Look no further than the t.co domain in your Traffic Sources. When you click on this, you will see the specific t.co links that have led visitors to your website.
Copy the Referral Path listed, then paste it into your browser after http://t.co so you can go to the post or page that it references. In another tab (if you don’t have this already), install the Topsy Trackbacks bookmarklet on your bookmarks toolbar. Then go to the tab with your post and click on the Topsy bookmarklet. You will now see most of the tweets for your page in Topsy.
When you get to the All posts about this link section, scroll to the bottom and click on the more link until you’ve pulled most of the tweets for your post (which could take a while, depending on how many times the page has been tweeted). Then use your browser’s Find on Page (CTRL + F) and paste in the Referral Path again. It should take you to one (or more) tweets with the t.co link that you pulled from Google Analytics. The first person who tweeted it is the source of your Twitter traffic!
In my case, it was Dave Larson of TweetSmarter that I had to thank for the most traffic from Twitter for my post on how to start a blog on WordPress.
Going back to your Referral Paths from t.co, you can also use this to see which posts on your site get the most Twitter traffic. Simply click on the Secondary dimension dropdown and select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.
This will show you the posts each t.co link references.
Pages with Traffic from Image Search
Curious what posts or pages on your website get the most traffic from Google Images search? Find out by clicking on the google.com domain in your traffic sources and then click on the /imgres Referral Path. Next, use the Secondary dimension dropdown and, again, select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.
Be sure to check out the images on those pages to see if you can use similar images for future posts / pages on your site for more image related traffic!
Guest Posts, Comments, or Crowdsourcing
When you’re looking at your Traffic Sources, it’s easy to tell which source is related to your guest posting, commenting, or sites you contribute answers to for crowdsourced posts. If you do multiple activities on one site, then you need to click on that site’s domain and drill down to the Referral Paths to see which activity gets the best results from that site.
By drilling down on my own referral traffic from Social Media Examiner, I could see that it comes from a variety of things, including one guest post, making their top blog list, a crowdsourced post, and a link left to one of my posts in the forums.
LinkedIn Shares, Groups, Answers, or Company Pages
If you are active on LinkedIn and take advantage of different things such as sharing your posts on your profile, LinkedIn groups, LinkedIn Answers, or on your company page, then you will probably want to know which of those activities bring the most traffic to your website. Click on linkedin.com in your Traffic Sources to see the following.
Here, I can see that the most traffic comes from shares within groups (/news), followed by status updates (/home, /profile/view, and /share), more group shares (/groupItem), and Answers (/groupAnswers).
Most Popular Posts on StumbleUpon
It’s tough to find things on StumbleUpon sometimes, including which posts from your own sites are the most popular on their network. If you want to see which posts on your site get the most StumbleUpon traffic, click on stumbleupon.com in your Traffic Sources, then click on the refer.php Referral Path. Next, use the Secondary dimension dropdown and, again, select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.
Now you can see which posts have driven the most StumbleUpon traffic over the last year. This is great to reference when you are determining what new content you want to create and how it will fare on the SU network. Going forward, with the latest changes to the SU networks, you will just look at any links starting with /su/ in the Referral Paths.
If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out basic Google analytics tips.
Do you go deeper into your Google Analytics Traffic Sources? What other discoveries have you found about your referral traffic?
Learn What Technology Websites are Using, Statistics, and More
Have you ever visited a website and were curious about what they were running on it, such as the platform, analytics, or add-ons? Have you ever wondered how many other people are using the same website components as you do? Do you want a quick SEO profile of the site as well? If so, then you need to visit BuiltWith.com.
Learn What Technology Any Website Uses
There are three ways to find out technology a particular website is using. First off, you can visit the BuiltWith.com homepage and enter the domain name in the search box. Next, you can just enter http://builtwith.com/domain.com into your browser and change domain.com to the domain of the site you wish to view. Or you can download the Chrome Extension and click on the extension to see a popup with the website’s technology profile.
On the website’s profile page, you will find the following information (when applicable).
- Server Information – This doesn’t tell you where a site is hosted, but tells you the type of web server the site is hosted on.
- Content Management Systems – This will tell you if the website is using WordPress, Joomla, or a similar CMS.
- Ecommerce – This will tell you if the website is using an Ecommerce system like E-junkie or other shopping cart software.
- Frameworks – This will tell you the programming framework of the website. For WordPress, it will commonly be PHP.
- Advertising – This will tell you what advertising systems are being used on a website such as Google AdSense and some affiliate networks.
- Analytics and Tracking – This will tell you if a site uses Google Analytics, StatCoutner, or similar analytics system. Aweber’s mailing list code sometimes pops up into this area too.
- JavaScript Libraries – This will tell you about the different JavaScript coding libraries called in the website’s coding.
- Audio / Video – This will tell you about any technology such as Vimeo, YouTube, or other media found on the website.
- Widgets – This will tell you about different widgets and add-ons a website is using, including social sharing buttons. It will pull information about some WordPress plugins, but most will just be lumped under WordPress Plugins.
- Aggregation Functionality – This will tell you about the RSS and pingback functionality of a site, including whether it uses Feedburner.
- Document Information & Encoding – This will tell you more about the website’s coding, like if it uses HTML, CSS, etc.
View Trends About Website Technology
While you are viewing a website’s technology profile you can click on the link for any technology listed to see more data about its usage. Alternatively, you can visit theTechnology Trends page and see the top technology used across the Internet. For example, if you clicked on WordPress, you would see the following.
Trending Usage‘
This chart shows you if a particular piece of technology is increasing or decreasing in popularity. In this case, usage of WordPress is definitely increasing.
Industries
Find out what industries use a particular piece of technology the most. This pie chart shows that, aside from the Other category, WordPress seems to be used equally amongst different niches.
Similar Coverage
See what website technology is similar to the application you are viewing. In this case, the next most popular technology similar to WordPress is Joomla.
Top Sites
Want to see the biggest sites using a particular piece of technology? Click on the Top Sites list on the application page.
Get a Glimpse of a Website’s Search Engine Optimization
If you want to check out a website’s SEO information, click on the SEO Profile tab. This will give you a little analysis of basic SEO elements such as your title tag, meta description, H1 heading tag, common keywords (as shown in the pie chart above), image ALT tags, website speed, and social bookmarking stats on Facebook & Delicious. It also gives you an overall score plus a score of where your website ranks compared to others. Apparently 57% is a good score if 97% of other websites score below that!
5 Question & Answer Sites to Help You Build Authority in Internet Marketing
I love Question & Answer sites for two reasons. First of all, they allow you to build your authority in almost any niche by letting you demonstrate your expertise on any given topic to those who are seeking answers. Second, they provide a hotbed for discovering popular topics to write about on your blog. The following ten Q&A networks should have questions for people seeking to answer them in any niche.
LinkedIn Answers
If you have a LinkedIn profile, you’re already set to participate in LinkedIn Answers. This professional network covers categories ranging from Administration to Technology, including Blogging, Internet Marketing, and Search Marketing. Those whose answers are selected as the best answer have the chance to be listed as the category experts.
Tips to maximize your LinkedIn Answers experience include:
- Be sure to complete your LinkedIn profile prior to participating & make sure it is public. This way anyone who enjoys your answers can learn more about you and head on over to your website! Pay particular attention to creating a crafty headline as this will be shown next to your name when you answer questions.
- If you have a blog post that supports an answer you give, add it as a web resource.
- Great answers can lead to job opportunities, clients, and leads, so make your answers count!
Quora
Quora is a Q&A network with an estimated 1.5 million unique visitors per month. Their network covers a wide range of topics from A to Z including SEO, Web Marketing, and Blogging.
Tips to maximize your Quora experience include:
- Filling out your profile. This includes adding links within your bio information to your website and top social profiles so people can check out your website.
- When you follow a topic, go back to your profile and click on the Topics link. Then add a quick blurb for each topic in the “Describe your experience” area. This will be added next to your name when you answer questions within that topic.
Focus
Focus is a community that connects businesses with experts. Their Q&A network covers over tons of business-related topics including Internet Marketing, SEO, and Link Building.
Tips to maximize your Focus experience include:
- Fill out your profile completely. Your job title will be listed next to your name when you answer questions. Your profile also allows you two dofollow links, so choose them wisely.
- You can add links to your answers as well – just paste in the full URL and it will be hyperlinked automatically.
Stack Overflow
When you think of Q&A networks, Stack Overflow may not come to mind at first. But with 8.1 million unique visitors per month, it should. Their community is mostly focused towards developers and programmers, but it does include questions tagged with SEO, SEO Friendly, and Social Networking.
Tips to maximize your Stack Overflow experience include:
- Subscribe to your favorite question tags via RSS. That way you can keep up with new questions without having to visit the site daily.
- Prepare to talk to a very technical audience as most of these people are developers, not Internet marketers.
Yahoo Answers
While the Yahoo Answers community is not always professional, it is still the Q&A network whose questions get featured in search results often. Hence it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on the Search Engine Optimization category to see if there are good questions to answer.
Tips to maximize your Yahoo Answers experience include:
- Get your 250 points early by answering easy questions. Once you get 250 points, you reach Level 2 and can add links to your answers. Before you reach Level 2, your links will not be active.
- People seem to prefer cartoon avatars over actual photos. You’ll be in the minority if you put a real pic on your account.
Do you use Q&A networks? What other networks would you suggest for helping build authority, find blog topic ideas, and building links?
When to Ask for a Guest Post
Guest blogging is a great way to increase authority in your niche and beyond as well as build some great backlinks to your blog, business, or website. Sometimes, especially when it comes to larger site, the big question is when should you make your move. The following are great opportunities to get a guest post on one of your favorite blogs.
1. When the Blog Advertises the Need for Additional Contributors
Do you have your sights set on guest posting for a particular blog? Then one of the first things you should be doing is following that blog religiously. This means subscribing to them via RSS and following them on social media via the top networks (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+). Aside from getting to learn more about the blog, you will be the first to know if and when they invite contributors to their site. Whether they ask for guest bloggers or freelance writers, either invitation means they are looking for more content which makes it a prime time to strike!
2. When the Blog Features a Guest Post
When following your favorite blog, you might notice a day when they specifically say they have a guest post by someone who is not a regular on the site. This is a great opportunity to say that you have been following their blog for a while and were excited to see that they accepted guest bloggers. Could you be the next? You’ll get extra bonus points if you know one of the recent guest bloggers and you get them to introduce you to the blog owner.
3. When the Blog Has Mentioned You
If you have been commenting and interacting with a blog and its owners/writers/editors on social media, chances are one day, they might mention you in one of their posts. So long as the mention is in a positive light, this might be a good chance to jump in. Try sending them a personal email saying thanks for the mention, and then ask if you can write more about the topic at hand in a guest blog post!
4. When You’ve Been Listed
Just recently, I was listed as one of the 20 bloggers to watch in 2012 on ProBlogger. This was a pretty exciting acknowledgement, and one that I could easily use as part of a guest post pitch to another site. It’s essentially a very public testimonial!
5. When You Have a String of Successful Guest Posts Elsewhere
Think about approaching a guest post opportunity like you would a new job. Your first impression on that employer might be your portfolio of work samples. Present the blog that you are pitching a sample of your latest work – make sure those samples are within the same industry and (preferably) on sites that are just as well known. This will show the blog owner that not only have you written for other similar sites, but you had successful posts on those sites as well. There is nothing that a blog owner wants more than posts that will be a hit with their audience.
Have you found other times when the moment was right to ask for a guest post and you succeeded because of perfect timing? Please share your experiences in the comments!
How to Find Out When a Blog Post Was Published
Maybe it is just me, but does it annoy you when you can’t find a blog post’s date? Sure, the advice to remove the date from your blog post was given by well-meaning people who wanted to help your content always look fresh, but let’s get real. For some niches, where the information is timeless, that isn’t such a bad thing.
But if your blog covers coding, SEO, social media, technology, health, etc., then there should be a date. Then there’s nothing worse than not being sure when something was published, especially if it is advice that could have stopped working about two application versions ago or doesn’t fit the new search engine algorithms. If you’ve seen a blog post with a screenshot, then went to the site and found everything has changed, you probably know what I mean.
So how can you find out when a blog post was published? Here are a few ways, starting from the easiest to the most time consuming.
1. Check out the URL
Sometimes, even though the blog post itself doesn’t have a timestamp, the URL does. You might at least get close enough to a month and a year.
This isn’t always a sure bet though, as most people don’t use a date.
2. Look at the Comments
While many blogs may find the way to hide the timestamp on the post, some of those might not have figured out how to remove it from the comments. Try to find the oldest comment on the post – that should be the closest date to when it was published.
3. Search Using Wolphram Alpha
For blogs that say 601 days ago, 6 months ago, etc., you can use the Wolfram Alpha search engine. Just type in the time period stated, and it will convert it into a date.
4. Google It
Try to search for site:domain.com intitle:keyword in Google. Sometimes the search results will display the date of the post.
5. Subscribe in Google Reader
If you really want to know when something was published, subscribe to the blog in Google Reader. Nine out of ten times, it will show you the post date. You might have to search for the post in question using the search box if you don’t want to scroll, but you should be able to get the date this way.
Some blogs, for some reason, will load only the latest 10 posts, all with the same date. If that happens, leave the feed and come back again… it might just take a few moments to populate all of the data.
The Alternative to Removing Your Post Date
What is the alternative to removing the date from your post and keeping your blog’s content fresh? If you can’t keep up with the post frequency, look to outside sources including guest bloggers and freelance writers. So long as you at least have one post per week, you should be set!
Does a missing post date drive you nuts when you find an article through search? Do you remove the date on your posts for a specific reason? Please share your thoughts and any additional ways to find a missing post date in the comments!
How to Find Your Site Mentions on Social Networks
Are you ever curiuos about your standings on social networks? See things like who has been sharing your content, how many shares / votes it has received, and more with the following URLs or Google search queries. Just replace domain.com with your domain!
There are two ways you can see your tweets on Twitter. The first is to perform a real time search on Twitter itself using the following URL (be sure to use the dropdown to see All tweets). Use the Save this search button to save it to your Twitter profile or create a column for this search in HootSuite / Tweetdeck.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%domain.com%22
The second is to use Topsy.com, which will show you the tweet count next to results from your domain. Change the time range to see tweets from the past hour to all time, and click on the tweet count of a particular post will let you see who has tweeted it.
http://topsy.com/s?q=domain.com
Facebook search is a bit trickier – using their search bar, you will only get results when someone has typed your domain.com in the comment of their share, and only within the last 30 days. If you want to see a sampling of who is sharing your posts, try the following on Google.
site:facebook.com inurl:posts “domain.com”
Google+
When you search using Google+, you will get mentions of links from your domain that have been shared as well as anyone who has mentioned your domain in their comments.
https://plus.google.com/s/domain.com/posts
Topsy also has a search that will show the number of times a post has been shared on Google+. Just like the Twitter results, you can change the time range to see tweets from the past hour to all time, and click on the tweet count of a particular post will let you see who has tweeted it.
http://plus.topsy.com/s/domain.com
You can search domain mentions on LinkedIn using the following URL. While it might not be that exciting because a lot of people feed their Twitter into their LinkedIn profile, the nice part is you can use the left side options to see people who tweet your content by location, company, industry, connections, and more. It may actually be a great way to meet new people that you can connect with – just check the box next to 3rd + Everyone under Network!
http://www.linkedin.com/signal/?type=updates&keywords=domain.com
YouTube
If you’ve tagged a lot of your videos with your link, these will come up as well. But I did find that if you search for your domain, you might find some people who have mentioned or referenced it in their videos.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=”domain.com”
StumbleUpon
There were two ways to find out which pages from your site have been stumbled. The first was the long way which will allow you to use the Stumble button to go through pages from your domain on the StumbleUpon network, one by one. When I last tried this, I got a message that SU was “testing” some new feature and it didn’t work like it was supposed to. Not sure if that is a temporary thing or not.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/stumble/stumblethru:domain.com
As a substitute, you can use this Google search instead.
site:www.stumbleupon.com/url/domain.com/
Delicious
This URL will show you the pages from your domain that have been bookmarked by users on Delicious, the number of times each page has been saved, and the tags / descriptions that people have added.
http://delicious.com/search?p=domain.com
Digg
This URL will show you any pages dugg from your domain, including vote counts.
http://digg.com/search?q=site:domain.com
The results may not always be pleasant with this network, but using this URL will help you find any mentions of your domain on Reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/domain/domain.com/
BizSugar
BizSugar is a great network for business news, so if your site has great business content, it may have ended up here. See which pages have been sugared using this URL!
http://www.bizsugar.com/search/domain.com
Pinterest is the latest and greatest social bookmarking site that allows you to create vision boards with images on the web (hint: you should optimize for it). This URL will let you see if any photos from your domain have been pinned by Pinterest users.
http://pinterest.com/source/domain.com/
Do you keep up with your site mentions on social media or bookmarking networks? What other ones do you follow?
Optimizing the New YouTube Channel Design
Back in October, I wrote an article on optimizing your social media profiles for SEO which included a detailed look at YouTube channels. And of course, here we are in December and YouTube has completely revamped their channel design. If you haven’t been to your channel recently, I’d suggest you go take a look at it now as it has all changed.
Before:
After:
Here are some highlights as to what you need to go in and modify.
Featured Videos
The first thing I noticed right away was my set featured video was nowhere to be found, and the channel was displaying my latest videos in the order they were uploaded. So if you’re like me and you want that featured video back, be sure to go in and set it. Click on the Edit button above the top video on your channel.
Use the dropdown to select whether your featured video is in Uploaded videos, Favorite videos, or a custom playlist. Then uncheck the box for Most Recent Video in Featured Set to see all of your videos in the category you chose. Click on the video you want as featured and then click Apply.
Playlist
Beneath your featured video is a playlist, usually set to your most recent uploads or another playlist. Click on the Edit button above this playlist to choose what you want displayed.
Select the playlist (Uploaded videos, Favorite videos, or a custom playlist) you want displayed below your featured video and then click Apply.
About You and Your Links
To edit your channel’s information, click on the Edit button in the right sidebar above the About You text.
The downside to the new changes is that there is no longer any customizable field that counts as the meta description for your channel and your links are no longer dofollow. The upside is you can include more links on your channel to your website, social profiles, etc. While they may not have SEO value, they are in a great position to be clicked upon by visitors to your channel.
Beneath your links are additional fields about you as the user, your hometown, occupation, companies, schools, and interests. The most important area to fill out is the top About box and your links as the rest of the information will be hidden unless someone clicks on the more link.
Featured Playlists and Channels
Underneath your information and links are two areas where you can highlight your featured playlists and featured channels (or links to other YouTube channels). Click on the Edit button above each section to set these in the order you prefer.
Have you updated your YouTube channel? Do you love it or hate it? Please share your thoughts on the new design in the comments!
Facebook Share vs. Facebook Like Button
Sure, the Facebook Share button is no longer officially available from Facebook. But that doesn’t stop sites from finding the code and using it. The question is – why are people (like myself) still using it and how does it affect your actual “like” count?
Customizing Shares with the Facebook Share Button
The main reason I still use the Facebook Share button on my blog over the Facebook Like button is for the way it works. When you click on the Facebook Share button, you will get the chance to do the following.
- Change the privacy of your shared post to Public, Friends, Custom, or only to be shown to specific lists.
- Post the share on your own timeline, on a friend’s timeline, in a group, on your page, or in a private message.
- Add a comment on why you are sharing the post.
- Change the thumbnail to one you like the best.
- Click on the title and description of the link and edit it to suit your needs.
When you click on the Facebook Like button, however, you only get the chance to add a comment.
It will then automatically show up on your Timeline as a public post with the thumbnail Facebook chooses and the default title and description.
The tradeoff with using the Facebook Share button over the Like button is that the people who don’t care how the post appears on their profile might be miffed at the fact they need to take the extra steps to customizing the post before it goes on their profile. You can satisfy everyone’s needs by placing both buttons on your website, but then you have less room to add other social sharing buttons. Since I have mine in a neat row at the top of posts, I would have to trade off my LinkedIn, Google+, or Buffer button.
Counting Shares vs. Likes
The next question about the Facebook Share button is what the difference is when counting shares vs. likes. I had the same question, so I used the links.getStats console for Facebook developers which you can only use if you have developed an app on Facebook. I only use the Share button on my blog posts, so I got the stats for one of my most popular Facebook posts on the new Timeline profile.
It shows the total count of Facebook shares as 467, Likes as 294, and comments as 276. Whenever I plug my post’s URL into the Like button code box, I get a total of 1,037 likes.
This means that whenever someone shares, likes or comments on your post on Facebook that it all will be totaled up as likes toward your post!
Getting the Code
Before adding the Facebook Share button, I will give you this disclaimer – although it is working now, it might not be for long since Facebook has redirected the page for their Share button to the Like button. If you choose to use it until it stops functioning, you can do so by placing the following code into your website’s template.
<a name="fb_share" type="button_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript">
If you want the code for the Facebook Like button instead, you can get it via the configuration tool on the Like button plugins page.
Do you use the Facebook Share or Facebook Like button? Which one do you prefer using when going to someone else’s site? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Why Are People Following You on Twitter
In a post by Christina Reed entitled Thoughts of a Concerned Tweeter over on Smart Boy Designs, the author raised the point of “Why aren’t more people on Twitter asking the question, ‘what made you follow me?’ This is crucial information.”
This led me to remember some steps I had seen on how to find out the answer to this question by analyzing Twitter lists you have been added to using Excel and Wordle by both Rick Galan and Ari Herzog.
The following are updated directions for creating a Wordle using Excel 2010 and Open Office Calc 3.3.
Copying Your Twitter Lists
- Go to your Twitter profile and click on the number Listed to see the Twitter lists in which people have added you.
- Keep scrolling to the bottom until you can either get them all to display. This might take awhile if you’re on a lot of lists, and you might run into a message that “loading seems to be taking awhile” – when you click Try Again, it will start loading more lists. When you reach the end, you’ll see a Back to Top link.
- Once you have all of your lists loaded, highlight them all and copy.
Compiling Your Twitter Lists in Microsoft Office Excel 2010
- Create a new Excel document.
- Go to Paste > Paste Special > Text to paste the information without any formatting, pictures, etc.
- Go to the Data tab > Text to Columns. In the Convert to Text Columns Wizard, choose Delimited as the file type then click Next. Check Other under Delimiters and enter a / in the box then click Next. Then on the next screen, check Finish.
- Delete Column A.
- Delete Columns B through E.
- Scroll through and make sure there is at least 1 – 2 blank rows between each list name. Sometimes people will include a / in their list description and anything after that will still be in the spreadsheet – just delete those when you come across them (I had about 15 out of 2,000+ lists).
- Save your spreadsheet.
- Scroll down to the last item in Column A and highlight everything in Column A from the first row to the last. Press F5 and in the Go To screen, click the Special button. Under Select, choose Blanks and click Ok. Once the blanks are highlighted, go to the Home tab > Delete > Delete Cells and Shift Cells Up.
- Now you should have approximately the same number of rows as you do Twitter lists (I ended up with 2,035 rows for my 2,071 lists).
- Use the Find & Replace option to replace dashes (-) with a blank space ( ). This will take the Twitter default of adding dashes between words out to make a better keyword phrase (social media instead of social-media).
Compiling Your Twitter Lists in Open Office Calc 3.3
- Create a new Calc document.
- Go to Paste Special > Unformatted Text.
- In the Text Import screen under Separator Options > Separated By, check Other, enter a / in the box, and click Ok.
- Delete Column A.
- Delete Columns B through E.
- Scroll through and make sure there is at least 1 – 2 blank rows between each list name. Sometimes people will include a / in their list description and anything after that will still be in the spreadsheet – just delete those when you come across them (I had about 15 out of 1,900+ lists).
- Save your spreadsheet.
- Scroll down to the last item in Column A and highlight everything in Column A from the first row to the last. Under the Data menu, select Sort > and then Sort by the first item in Column A and Ascending then click Ok.
- Now you should have approximately the same number of rows as you do Twitter lists.
- Use the Find & Replace option to replace dashes (-) with a blank space ( ). This will take the Twitter default of adding dashes between words out to make a better keyword phrase (social media instead of social-media).
Creating Your Wordle
- Copy all of your keywords into the Wordle.net “Paste in a bunch of text” box and click Go.
- Allow Java to run if your browser gives you the prompt.
- Under Layout, change the Maximum Words to 50 and use the Mostly Horizontal layout.
- Under Color, change the color palette to something easy to read (I’m a fan of Shooting Star).
- under Font, change the font to something easy to read (I’m a fan of Coolvetica).
- From here, you will need to take a screenshot of your Wordle, then edit that screenshot to just show the actual Wordle. I use the free version of Jing (Mac or Windows), but you can use whatever method you normally do to take screenshots and size them appropriately. You can also zoom in using your browser to get a bigger shot than the default displayed size at 100%.
Why People Follow @kikolani
Here’s the Wordle result from my Twitter lists! Click on it to see the full size.
Now I can see that people add me to their Twitter lists for blogging, social media, marketing, SEO, business, tech, experts, writers, influencers, and friends.
Once you’ve created your Wordle, you can use it in any way you please – on your blog, business cards, t-shirts, etc. as per Wordle’s terms of use for images produced by their applet.
Have you tried this out? What were your top keywords in Twitter lists? Be sure to share in the comments!