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"Social media analytics company Sysomos used its platform to analyze the Twitter followers of celebrities, social media heavyweights and news sources. Sysmos found that the Twitter followers of social media heavyweights were the most influential of the bunch and followers of celebrities by contrast, have little to no authority.\nSysomos assigned authority rankings from zero to ten for followers based on the number of their followers, following, updates, retweets and other undisclosed factors. On average, the most-followed celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have followers with zero influence.\nThe followers of social media heavyweights like Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang averaged much higher scores \u2014 between four and five points for authority, on average.\nThe followers of news and media Twitter accounts like our own landed in the middle of the pack, scoring between two and three on the authority and influence scale. We also learned that Mashable followers have more influence on Twitter than followers of The New York Times's account (way to go, readers!).\nIf you accept Sysomos's definitions of influence and authority \u2014 definitions that are by no means official or scientific \u2014 then the company's findings seem rather obvious. It's to be expected that those interested in social media on Twitter would have higher influence given that the formula for authority includes follower counts and retweets. The same holds true for the counter finding with regards to celebrity followers; celebrities are bound to attract mainstream followers less interested in their own Twitter follower counts and more consumed with their celebrity obsessions.\nNow that Twitter is hitting 65 million tweets per day and 2 billion tweets per month, perhaps a renewed interest in follower influence is to be expected. We'll let you decide how much weight to give to Sysomos's follower findings.\nFollower Authority\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, Kazakov"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/twitter-follower-influence/>