Does mainstream media really boost Twitter followers?

January 26, 2009 By 2 Comments

There’s been some coverage of the appearance of Twitter on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, due to both @wossy and guest @stephenfry not only being ‘celebs who Twitter’, but actualy ‘celebs who really get how Twitter works’.

Martin Belam calculated that Stephen Fry had increased his follower count by 16% between the filming on Thursday and Sunday morning.

Personally, I’d have calculated any effect from when the programme was first shown, as that’s when new followers would appear. Neville Hobson used Twittercounter to count 4000 new followers for StephenFry in the first 24 hours, but really focuses on the increase in activity and conversation from existing Twitter users about the TV mention. (Techcrunch UK also has a summary of the TV coverage)

But hang on a minute.

Even if we take the total at 10.30pm on Sunday, @stephenfry has gained 8864 from an audience of 4million+. Meanwhile 84% of his followers appeared before the mass media appearance, by finding him on Twitter and spreading the word.

So he gained 8/10 followers by conversation, word of mouth and social networking, and just 2/10ish by broadcasting on the biggest national TV station in the UK.

Does mainstream media coverage really boost followers or validate Twitter?

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  • http://www.currybet.net Martin Belam

    Personally, I’d have calculated any effect from when the programme was first shown, as that’s when new followers would appear.

    I picked the Thursday because with it being Ross’s first show since he was suspended, there was a lot of coverage in the press already about what was going to be in the show, including mention of Twitter.

    Also, I’d argue that Stephen has been tweeting since at least the beginning of October, so it took an awful lot longer to build up the 8/10ths of his followers than the sudden burst that mainstream media coverage delivered.

  • http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Dan Thornton

    Hi Martin – thanks for the comments, and thanks for explaining why you picked Thursday – apologies if I sounded critical (late night blog posting not always a good idea!).
    I agree that it took longer to build up the 8/10ths, but it would be interesting to see what percentage of the 8/10s are interacting with him and also repeating his content to their own networks – I’d suspect many more than his new followers in general. It’s also only taken him 3 months to reach that 8/10 figure, which shows an impressive natural build of followers without mainstream media coverage.