Focus on Assessment - Dec 6, 2010

A recent study by Chua and Goh found that the presence of Web 2.0 applications was found to
correlate to the overall quality of the library’s website, particularly service quality. While tools
that help assess the impact and efficacy of these applications are still in their infancy, a number
of measures have begun to emerge. Google Analytics is well known for its ability to analyze web
traffic patterns, and is certainly one tool that could be used to measure hits/traffic on the library’s
Twitter or Facebook pages. There are many other tools and metrics available, however, and I’ll
highlight some that are useful for Twitter. For those who wonder about the value of having
organizational Twitter accounts, the recent article by Brad Ward provides a succinct analysis.

First some basics. While our Twitter account is set up so that it can be viewed by any visitor,
Twitter is designed to allow other Twitter users to sign up and “follow” your messages, i.e.,
tweets. One metric popular among Twitter users is to look at the number of followers and
compare rankings. Since most library-based Twitter accounts have significantly fewer followers
than Lady Gaga, this metric is less than useful in the abstract. A graph of the change in number
of followers over time might be useful, though, as well as looking at those numbers in
comparison to those of similar organizations. Of perhaps even more interest are the
characteristics of your followers - who are they and are they your target audience? Tools exist to
help answer those questions... but back to the basics. Since tweets can be no longer than 140
characters, there isn’t room for long descriptions or URLs. Authors generally use URLshortening
services such as bit.ly and tinyurl to create shortened URLs to put in their tweet. Since each
shortened URL is unique, the number of hits using that URL can easily be tracked and, in some
cases, analyzed. Also of interest are the number of replies, retweets, and mentions in other
tweets. Other metrics include the volume and frequency of tweets, and their relevance and
impact. But on to the tools....the following list is a sampling of Twitter tools, many of which
overlap in metrics provided but illustrate multiple ways to view the data. All are free for basic
use.

TwitterAnalyzer: (See image below) This robust and sophisticated tool, developed by Twitter,
provides many of the most common Twitter metrics such as number of tweets, followers,
retweets, replies, common keywords, etc. as well as more sophisticated metrics about follower
characteristics. For example, EMSL learned that a number of our followers are EMT
professionals who appear to have been lured into following the EMSL twitter feed by mistake!

Twitalyzer: In addition to the usual metrics are measures related to clout, generosity, and
engagement.

Klout: (pictured above) This tool measures online influence, reported in the form of a number
from 1 to 100. Other measures include true reach (size of engaged audience), amplification score
(how likely your tweets generate actions such as retweeting), and network influence. PSULibs
has a Klout score of 21 and is a ‘feeder’ of information, one of 16 quadrants of information
types. Interestingly, while other PSUL twitter accounts have similar amplification and network
scores, our reach scores vary greatly.

TwInfluence: Among the interesting metrics calculated are reach ranking and absolute rank.
Derived statistics look at velocity, social capital, and centralization.

TweetStats: (pictured above) This provides results in an attractive graphical format showing
tweets-per-hour and per-month, tweet timeline, reply statistics, trend cloud (i.e., word cloud),
follower statistics, top tweets and twitter apps.
Followcost: Measures volume of tweets in average number of tweets/day; calculates how
annoying you are to follow!

Twittercounter: Provides a graphic view of activity weekly, monthly, and 3-monthly. Shows
trends for followers, following, and tweets.

Twitterscore: The score is based on three factors — friends, followers and frequency of updates,
with some weighting built in to account for the Lady Gagas of the Twitterverse. Take heart,
Science magazine is in the top ten in the Twitter rankings also.

Twittergrader: Similar tool to Twitterscore, it includes a graph of trends, tweeting history,
location, and so on. The algorithm used to calculate the grade includes number of followers,
power of followers, engagement and other factors.

Alton Y. K. Chua and Dion H. Goh, “A study of Web 2.0 applications in library websites,”
Library & Information Science Research 32 (2010): 203-211.

Brad J. Ward, “Bird on a Wire: Twitter the next big thing or dead on arrival?” CASE Currents
May/June 2010. (Link-shortened URL is http://t.co/rsyz52j)