A look at the life of a Twitter account.

1. Data from @eacconference
Editors’ Association of Canada
Vancouver 2011 Conference
Twitter in 200 days
Dec 2010 to Jun 2011

2. The purpose was to interact with the existing
writing and editing communities and specifically:
• Build awareness of the EAC
• Heighten interest in the Conference
• Promote EAC’s professional services
2

3. Three paths were planned to achieve these goals:
• Broadcast messages about the EAC
and the Conference
• Build an online community of communicators
– This became the main goal
• Offer relevant help, advice and resources
3

4. From March onwards, the account was consistently
linking/pointing people to the website
via tweeting with them about:
• Conference schedule, speakers and location
• Becoming a member
• Benefits of membership
• Hiring writers, editors and communicators
• Existing prominent members
• Professional development seminars
• Etc.
4

5. 200 days of activity
900
800
700
600
500
Tweets
400
Followers
300
200 Mentions
100 DMs
0
5

6. Graph key
• Tweets shows the number of Twitter
micro-blogs published by @eacconference
• Followers refers to subscribers of the
@eacconference Twitter account
• Mentions are often re-tweets but also any
occurrence of “@eacconference” tweeted
by someone else
• DMs refers to direct messages sent by
@eacconference (you can only send a DM to someone who is following you)
6

7. What some were saying
7

8. Activity, days 1 to 50
250
200
150
Tweets
Followers
100 Mentions
DMs
50
0
1st Jan-05
Jan-08
tweet
8

9. Highlights, days 1 to 50
• December: Initial activity revolved around tweets and re-tweets
about blogs and related stories on writing and editing
• Jan 5: Connections were made with conference speakers,
presenters and organizers
• Jan 8: @congredelacr Twitter account started
• Jan 10: New avatars for @congredelacr and
@eacconference launched
9

10. Activity, days 51 to 100
400
350
300
250 Tweets
200 Followers
Mentions
150
DMs
100
50
0
Feb Feb-24 Mar
10

11. Highlights, days 51 to 100
• January and February: Tweets are pointing to EAC’s professional
development seminars and workshops
• Feb 23: The first tweet about the conference—a reply to a question
for more information about the Conference and speaker schedule
• Feb 24: Conference website goes live and details are released
throughout March
11

12. Activity, days 101 to 150
600
500
400
Tweets
300
Followers
Mentions
200
DMs
100
0
Mar- Mar- Apr Apr-
18 25 08
12

13. Highlights, days 101 to 150
• March 18 and 25: Follow Friday(FF) lets people with similar
interests network and these two dates were productive for the
@eacconference community
• April 1: Early-bird pricing on conference tickets closes
• April 8: Conference details are extensively tweeted, on a Friday no less, so
anyone sent to the @eacconference Twitter page via an FF mention will
also see the tweets carrying Conference information and links
13

14. Issue #1: Fluctuating subscriber rate
• In general, increased tweeting and mentions
led to an increase in followers
• There are two notable exceptions where
increased tweeting didn’t result in an
equivalent increase in followers
– April 1: Early-bird registration deadline
– May 27 to 29: Conference, when most
tweeting and mentions happened
14

15. Issue #2: Adapting to flux
• Twitter plans were based on the
overall conference plans
• E.g. As interest in the event and
@eacconference climbed, when venue-
capacity in particular became a factor,
attention was taken away from looking for
potential attendees and used to further
converse with the established community
of communicators
15

16. Activity, days 151 to 200
900
800
700
600
500 Tweets
Followers
400
Mentions
300
DMs
200
100
0
May-
27
16

17. Highlights, days 151 to 200
• May 27: The three-day Vancouver 2011 EAC Conference begins
• The Conference and the city are enjoyed by attendees
• Conference participants tweeted throughout the conference while
attending sessions and networking in the real-world
• During the Conference there is an increase in tweeting and mentions,
but there is no equivalent increase in followers
• There continues to be a slow increase in followers into June
17

18. Tip #1: Know your followers
• Twitter allows the creation of lists/groups
– Looking at the Ontario list would show editors
following @eacconference that are based in
Ontario, and so on
• @eacconference only listed people
that were both
– part of the writing and editing community,
or provided a relevant service, and
– followed the @eacconference account
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19. Breakdown of 150 followers, mid-Jan
Identifiable Twitter Accounts
EAC Members
10% Editors in
Vancouver
9%
Misc.
35% Calgary Toronto
3% 3%
Victoria
1%
Canadian
Writers
West Coast 17%
multimedia
talent
22%
19

20. Breakdown of 300 followers, mid-Apr
Identifiable Twitter Accounts
EAC members Editors in and
8% around Metro
Indexers, Vancouver
2% Misc.
11%
12%
Editors in
Alberta Victoria
4% 1%
Canadian
Ontario
Writers
5%
25%
West Coast
Resources Multimedia
13% 19%
20

21. Tip #2: Watch for spam
Tweets will
appear that bear
no relation to the
event and are
trying to hijack
the audience
Via twitter.com,
or TweetDeck
etc., you can
take steps to
prevent the user
from spamming
you again
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22. Tip #3: Connect courteously
• @CTVCanadaAM started following
@eacconference in April and only then
did we follow back
• We said thanks for the follow
• @eacconference invited it and its followers
to participate and follow the conference
via Twitter
– Referred them to the Twitter hashtags #EAC2011
and #EAC11
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