Curators and Conversationalists. A study of more than 350 Swedish corporate Twitter accounts.

1. CURATORS AND CONVERSATIONALISTS
SWEDISH
BUSINESSES ON
TWITTER
2010-12-28 A brief study of more than 350 accounts
This report tries to investigate how Swedish businesses use Twitter
for their official corporate Twitter accounts. For live data and
statistics about these accounts, please visit
http://twitterlists.toolboxr.com/swedish-companies/

2. Swedish businesses on Twitter
Swedish businesses on Twitter
MONOLOGUE AND DIALOGUE
INTRODUCTION
The micro blog Twitter is one of the most popular and fastest growing social media services. As more and
more people share information in real-time on Twitter, the more important it becomes for businesses to
have a presence on Twitter. According to research, it is more common among Fortune Global 100
Companies to use Twitter than Facebook, YouTube and corporate blogs. Now that more and more
Swedish businesses start to tweet, it gets interesting to study how they use Twitter. For that reason, I have
compiled a list of more than 350 Swedish corporate Twitter accounts and studied how the most popular
ones behave.
SUMMARY
An analysis of 350 Swedish corporate Twitter accounts reveal the average number of:
- followers: 1,240
- following: 480
- tweets: 710
First registered account: Fleecelabs (@fleecelabs) which was registered on Jan 29, 2007.
Account with most followers: H&M (@hm) – 82,100
Account that follows most other accounts: Spotify (@spotify) – 16,500
Account with highest Klout score (influence): SJ (@SJ_AB) – 65
Account with most tweets: Ving/sistaminutenARN: (@sistaminutenARN) – 24,300
Account with highest followers/following ratio: H&M (@hm): 1,400 times more followers than following
back.
60 accounts have more than 1,000 followers.
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3. Swedish businesses on Twitter
FOLLOWERS
The ten most popular accounts, in terms of number of followers are:
1. H&M (@hm) – 82,100
2. Spotify (@spotify) – 72,000
3. Stardoll (@stardoll) – 51,100
4. Adland (@adland) – 21,400
5. Acne Online (@acneonline) – 14,600
6. Ericsson Labs/Tor Bjorn Minde (@ericssonlabs) – 10,800
7. Ericsson Press (@ericssonpress) – 6,100
8. SJ (@SJ_AB) – 5,900
9. Sony Ericsson DW (@sonyericssondev) – 5,900
10. Propellerhead (@propellerheadsw) – 5,700
H&M is growing faster than the other top accounts and surpassed Spotify as the most popular Swedish
corporate account on November 4, 2010. It attracts on average 289 new followers per day.
Worth noting is that all top ten accounts except SJ tweet in English. Among the top 50 accounts, 37 have
a description in English, 11 in Swedish and 2 don’t have a description.
When looking closer at the ten most followed accounts, it becomes clear that there is no one right way for
businesses to use Twitter. Some use Twitter to broadcast messages, others use it to engage in
conversations and one category use it to spread knowledge in co-operation with the community to
become thought leaders. Businesses may attract a large number of followers by using any of these
methods. If that means that these businesses reach their goals using Twitter, is a whole different matter, of
course.
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4. Swedish businesses on Twitter
Based on the percentage of replies and retweets, we can divide businesses into three categories*:
Broadcasters
Mainly use Twitter to publish messages, often with automated feeds from other sources, such as Facebook
or press releases. Rarely engage in conversations, answer questions or retweet other users’ tweets. Low
share of retweets and replies.
Curators
Actively filter and select the most interesting content on certain topics and share with their followers. Are
thought leaders who mix their own expertise with retweets of other sources in the community. High share
of retweets.
Conversationalists
High degree of interactivity with other users. Often use Twitter as a tool to help customers, answer
questions and engage with the community. High share of replies.
* Percentage of total tweets that are RT or replies, analyzed with Tweetstats.com
At the extreme end of share of replies we find SJ (Statens Järnvägar) with more than 90% replies.
Businesses that have this profile typically use Twitter as a customer service tool, to answer questions and
help customers with topics related to the product or service.
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5. Swedish businesses on Twitter
SJ also only tweet during ”normal” office hours, Monday – Friday, which is also slightly more typical for
companies that view Twitter as an extension of the traditional customer service*.
* When @SJ_AB tweets, analyzed with Tweetstats.com
INFLUENCE
Number of followers is not the only aspect of ”success” in social
media, especially since the network effects of Twitter mean that
you can reach many people by getting your message
retweeted by a few influential or ”right users”. One can use the
service Klout.com to determine a score for influence of a Twitter account. While Klout is by no means fool
proof, it is one way to analyze if the way Twitter is used has the potential to influence the community.
Please note that many accounts, especially new ones, are not yet covered by Klout.
The top ten businesses ranked by Klout score:
1. SJ (@sj_ab) - 65
2. Ericsson Labs/Tor Bjorn Minde (@EricssonLabs) - 64
3. Spotify (@spotify) – 64
4. H&M (@hm) – 63
5. SAS (@sas) – 59
6. SF BIO (@SFBIO) – 58
7. Swebus (@swebussverige) - 58
8. PiratförlagetMattias (@piratforlaget) - 57
9. Binero (@binero) – 55
10. North Kingdom (@NorthKingdom) – 53
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6. Swedish businesses on Twitter
NUMBER OF TWEETS
Tweeting a lot is no guarantee for a large number of followers. Three of the top five tweeters
are from the travel agency Ving. These accounts post offers for travels at last-minute prices
and have tweeted a total of 52,400 times, but only gained a total of 430 followers.
The top ten businesses ranked by total number of tweets:
1. Ving (@sistaminutenARN) – 24,300
2. SJ (@SJ_AB) – 18,800
3. PiratförlagetMattias (@piratforlaget) – 15,700
4. Ving (@sistaminutenGOT) – 15,000
5. Ving (@sistaminutenMMA) – 13,100
6. Adland (@adland) – 10,900
7. Dedicate Reklambyrå (@DedicateGbg) – 9,800
8. Binero (@binero) – 4,900
9. The Duffy Agency (@theduffyagency) – 4,700
10. Ericsson Labs/Tor Bjorn Minde (@EricssonLabs) – 4,400
WHAT TYPES OF BUSINESSES DO WE FOLLOW?
Examples of categories of companies with most followers (Dec 20, 2010) – top 50 companies:
• Telecom: like Ericsson Labs, Ericsson Press, Telia kundservice, Tele2, Rebtel
• Music: like Spotify, Propellerhead, Pacemaker, Debaser, EMI Music Sweden
• Travel: like SJ, SAS Group, ICEHOTEL, Ving, Arlanda Airport
• Communications agencies: like North Kingdom, The Duffy Agency, Great Works
• Online games/services: like Stardoll, Binero, Twingly, Expekt.com
• Fashion: like H&M, H&M Sverige, Acne Online
• Automotive/cars: like Saab, Scania Group
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7. Swedish businesses on Twitter
FOLLOWING/FOLLOWERS RATIO
Most corporate accounts are followed by more users than the other way around. This is especially true
above 2,000 ”following” since many companies add up to 2,000 friends in order to quickly get
followers. See also ”the 2,000 user following limit” below.
A majority of accounts have a Following/Followers ratio >1. (note: logarithmic scale)
Swedish companies on Twitter
100000
10000
1000
Following
100
10
1
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
Followers
The 2,000 user following limit
A user can only follow a maximum of 2,000 accounts on Twitter. This limit is set to prevent users from
adding thousands of accounts at once. You may start following more than 2,000 when your pass 2,000
followers of your own. This limit may be one reason why so many Swedish businesses are following just
below 2,000 accounts. For example Headweb, Loopia, Rebtel, Squace, Concetto PR and Nordic Möbler.
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8. Swedish businesses on Twitter
TWITTER ETIQUETTE FOR BUSINESS – TEN TIPS
1. Be clear about who the sender is. Is this the official Twitter channel then make that clear. If you
can specify who is doing the tweeting it will be easier to get a more personal relationship with
the company.
2. Twitter is a great tool for listening to customers and for dialogue in general. Answer direct
questions and comments that are directed to the company on Twitter.
3. Give your followers something of value for following you. Share your knowledge, both from your
own company but also from other sources. Excessive linking to your own site might be considered
spam.
4. Retweet good tips from others. It shows your are willing to give cred to others and that you are
up to date on things within your line of work.
5. Use common sense. All information (apart from Direct Messages) are public so normal
confidentiality rules still apply.
6. Respect the privacy of others. Just because you’ve heard that transparency is the new black, that
doesn’t mean you can tweet about colleagues without their approval.
7. Add other sources of information to your Twitter feed if you think they are of value to your
followers. It might be press releases, Flick photos, YouTube videos or promotional offers. But be
careful, a feed with just press releases is extremely boring.
8. Don’t ask for retweets, unless you are posting a question you want many to see, or you really
need help reaching out to the community.
9. Don’t start following hundreds of people at once. It is called aggressive following and is one
reason your account may be suspended by Twitter. But adding a small number of interesting
people may be a good way to start building your network.
10. Avoid ghost twittering. If the CEO is tweeting, you can support the person in many ways but in the
end the words should be his/her own.
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9. Swedish businesses on Twitter
ABOUT THIS REPORT
The data in this report have been compiled by Hans Kullin mainly through the Social Media Wiki and
http://twitterlists.toolboxr.com. Data has been analyzed between Dec 20 and 28, 2010 using
www.klout.com and www.tweetstats.com. In addition, data from more than 350 Swedish Twitter accounts
have been downloaded and analyzed manually. For live data about Swedish businesses on Twitter,
please see http://twitterlists.toolboxr.com/swedish-companies/
• The accounts in this report are official accounts for companies, but do not include traditional
media companies or media.
• For more information, please contact Hans Kullin. Contact details here.
• Hans is a digital PR strategist and I advise organizations on how to manage their reputation using
traditional PR and social media. In August 2010, my blog Media Culpa was named one of 25
Essential PR Bloggers You Should Be Reading by the online news distribution and online
publicity service PRWeb.
• Hans can be found on Twitter at: @kullin. My Klout score is currently 62.
• All content is distributed with a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xotoko/2382680812/
Twitter lists created with the help of Henrik Åsén and Daniel Moen.
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