Analyzing My Twitter Network

My social medium of choice these days is Twitter; as I described in an earlier post. I use Twitter to “find interesting people that I’d like to know and learn from others that I’ll likely never meet”.

I’ve read a few blog posts in the past week or so from social media folks that I respect on the value (or lack thereof) of Twitter as a social utility.

One of those posts prompted me to look a little more in depth at the “network” that I’ve developed through Twitter and as such I’ve tabulated the statistics below.

My Twitter network (http://www.twitter.com/geoffwood) breaks down into the following categories:

• People I don’t know, are not “famous” but I find interesting: 35
  
• Brands/Representatives of Brands: 33
  
• The Scotty Hendo (@scottyhendo)(1) Experiment: 12
  
• People that I know in person or have seen present/perform: 12
  
• News: 11
  
• Famous people (that I believe are the actual people): 6
  
• Famous people (that are undeniably not the people they claim to be: 3
  
• Hot Amish Chicks(2): 1

For those who are more visual, I present the same analysis as a pie chart:

(1)More on this later (2)For some reason there is an account “Hot Amish Chick” which is likely not a real person (since it’s doubtful an Amish person, chick or not) but is quite hilarious showcasing irreverent wit about modern society and Biblical history, such as this recent tweet: “A golden calf? The Hebrews worshiped a golden calf? PLEASE tell me they're still a little embarrassed by this. I mean, COME ON.”

Comments

[e Paisley]

Mull this over and let me know what you think. Does FACEBOOK, TWITTER, etc help or hurt friendships/relationships? I think it creates a sense of a relationship with actually having one. Facebook has allowed me to "reconnect" with people from highschool or college and you get to read about what is going on in there lives but you don't necesarrly interact with the person. You get a sense of closeness or friendship because you read what is going on, but you don't actually talk with them. It's like it creates this aura of friendship that isn't actually there.

[Wood]

That's pretty deep, Paiz. I like the term "aura of friendship". I think that's true for me with the people from high school and before.

One nice thing about it is that the next time you see them it's easier to converse since you're already aware of what's been going on in their lives. We saw this in action when we were back at kids concert at Hope's church in IA and she ran into friends that she hadn't seen in years but were on Facebook.