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Wonky by name but not by nature
Focus on: Followerwonk

Despite not having the most engaging name, Followerwonk provides an invaluable service that no serious user of social media should overlook – understanding their followers. 

 

Be honest, you probably know how many social media followers you have across Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook etc, but do you know much more about them? Do they largely match the demographic of your intended audience and objectives for your work? [If you haven’t considered these fully yet, look at my Winning at Social Media for Authors – Your 7-Step Guide for success download from when you became a site member] 

 

One of the essential things to develop an awareness of is who are your followers, when are they active, and how often do they post – the more they do the greater the chance they may also repost or comment on your content. This is where Followerwonk can help you – although do note this is just a tool for Twitter currently. As with many social media tools, there is both a free and paid version with greater options for the latter. To date, I’ve only been using the free version and get lots of useful intelligence from this. The Target and Multitask versions allow for more accounts to be assessed, details of follower losses and gains, and cater for accounts with larger follower bases. For most, the free version is a perfect starting point, and where I’ll focus. 

 

So what data can you see? Based on a recent refresh on my Twitter account, these reports are available, all with nice infographics to give you a visual point of reference. 

 

  • Mapped locations of users milesetherton follows 

  • Most active hours for users milesetherton follows 

  • Most active hours for milesetherton 

  • Social Authority scores of users milesetherton follows 

  • Follower counts of users milesetherton follows 

  • Following counts of users milesetherton follows 

  • Account ages of users milesetherton follows 

  • Recencies of tweets of users milesetherton follows 

  • Total tweets of users milesetherton follows 

  • Languages of users milesetherton follows 

 

It’s worth remembering this data is looking at who I follow, and not who follows me (available with the paid version), but about once a week I will review those who have followed me and will always follow back (unless they post objectionable content), and equally will unfollow those who, after a reasonable period, haven’t followed me back. This sounds harsh, but it’s important to keep your followers and those you follow as relevant as possible – and believe me, other accounts will trim in just the same way! Unless the account is a significant influencer or “celebrity” there is a lot of reciprocity in terms of people following you back, and something to do in return. A very high proportion of accounts I follow now follow me back. 

 

So, let’s explore a few of the data points and how you can use it: 

 

Mapped locations of users milesetherton follows 

As an author that writes in English most accounts I follow (and who largely follow me back) are in the UK and USA, which is what I would expect and hope for. Equally, for better linguists than me, it’s reassuring to see a geographical spread right across the globe of potential readers. 

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follower_map.jpg

Most active hours for users milesetherton follows

 

This is probably the most useful data set. You can see that peak times for users I follow are between 8-9AM (GMT) and then from 2PM (GMT) onwards – in part reflecting the USA time zones and end of the day in the UK. With this in mind, let’s look at the next chart.  

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followers_active.jpg

Most active hours for milesetherton

 

You can now see that I post most regularly between 8-10AM (GMT) for the UK market (probably those browsing social media as they eat their breakfast as I do!), and then 1-5PM (GMT) for the UK lunch break, early morning across the USA time zones and early evening in the UK. The theory being you will have the greatest levels of engagement with your post by aligning when you post with when your followers are most active. 

 

This does not mean I am tweeting constantly at these times, as these will be posts I have scheduled in advance at the peak times – a subject I’ll cover in a subsequent article alongside engagement and post performance.

me_active_hours.jpg

Recencies of tweets of users milesetherton follows 

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One other report I particularly like is the “recencies of tweets”. If the bulk of the accounts you follow (and if managed well, those who then follow you back) are in the darker green area, then the value of being linked is low. From this you can see the three highest numbers show users tweeting with regularity ranging from the last hour to the last seven days. Aim for the bulk of your followed/follower accounts to be in this range if you can. 

 

follower_recency.jpg

Final reflections 

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Twitterwonk has lots of potential and is a tool I find really valuable, even with just the free version. You can run the free report as often as you like, and as you grow your followers, staying on top of understanding their behaviour and demographics is essential. And with the paid version, there’s even more data you can get your teeth into! 

 

Check out Twitterwonk at https://followerwonk.com/  

 

This review is not sponsored by Twitterwonk in any way. 

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