Twitter Tool For Increased Engagement

June 19, 2012

I know – like we need another Twitter tool, right? In this age of attention deficit, I’ll just cut to the chase. This is a Google Docs tool that helps you quickly identify key influencers to engage with. Here’s your copy. (Once it’s open, go to File > Make a copy so you can edit it).

Twitter Engage

What it does:

Type in a URL and it will show you users who’ve tweeted a link to that URL, along with their bio, how many people are following them, how many people they are following, and the ratio of followers to following. The cells with the ratio are color coded  so you can quickly see the influencers – those who have more followers than people they follow.

How this helps you:

It lets you quickly narrow down who you engage with, saving you time and increasing your social presence. The following two examples illustrate specific situations when this tool can help.

Example 1:

You’ve published a blog post that happens to be very popular. Tens or hundreds of people are tweeting with a link to your post (how nice!). You want to be a gracious blogger and thank people for sharing your post, but you can’t thank them all. Doing so could annoy people who are following you (you’d be filling their Twitter streams with your thank-you messages – not valuable content).

You decide to thank just a handful of users who are more influential – those with bigger (and engaged!) audiences. But it’s a pain to compile a list of every person who tweeted your content, then analyze each and every one to find the most influential users. Some tools like Hootsuite let you easily do a search and find everyone who’s tweeted your stuff, but then you have to click on each individual (one at a time) to open a new window that shows followers, following and Klout scores, among other helpful info.

This tool is your shortcut. It shows you who is tweeting your content and gives you an idea of which user is worth engaging – all in less than five seconds!

Example 2:

This is why I brainstormed this tool in the first place. I try to tweet high-quality content in the anlaytics, social and mobile space regularly. I usually do this by passing along the articles I read that I find very helpful or important.

But instead of just tweeting with a link to an article, I thought it might help to find who else has already tweeted that article, then just retweet one of those users. People who follow me would still get the same great content that I found so useful, and I would no longer be tweeting in a silo. The person who I retweet might take notice, and the possibility for communication is opened up.

Again, this tool will help you quickly decide who you want to retweet.

I need you help

Consider this tool beta. Although there are things I know can be improved and features to be added, I’d love your feedback. Would this tool be helpful to you? What would you like to see changed or added? Let me know in the comments (and thanks in advance)!