Our good friend, Eric Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, has a great post on the topic of measuring success in Twitter. He asks if “influence is the best way to measure success in social media?” Or if we should pay closer attention to something like Twitter Ratio or Twinfluence. Yeah, I said Twinfluence. Let’s take a quick look at these two tools and get in the conversation on Eric’s site. Both Twitter Ratio and Twinfluence were new tools to me, so I enjoyed learning about them and testing for myself. Eric is correct when he says that these tools are addictive and that he could spend all day analyzing friends and colleagues. Twinfluence goes beyond cataloging how many followers you have to determine your influence. I couldn’t agree more that the volume of followers doesn’t mean a thing. It’s “quality” over “quantity” yet again. I cannot begin to talk about how Twinfluence ranks but just to say that the three “derived statistics” are – velocity, social capital and centralization. If you want definitions – go here.

Reach: BarackObama, JasonCalacanis, guykawasaki, Scobleizer, and chribrogan rounding out the top 5.

Velocity: lordmattborg, weirdchina, NovelistInsider, codiyiotti, and DaveLetterman.

Social Capital: amitwaks, FeelGoodNow, AndrewOlson, jfernandez, and andersonb8

Twitter Ratio is much easier to understand:  the ratio of your followers to friends (or people who you follow). They say the higher your ratio, the “more Twitter heat you pack.” A ratio of 2 or above shows that you are a popular person, but 10 or higher means you are a “rock star” in your field. I’m not so sure about using this as a sign of influence since it can easily be gamed by spammers who follow any and everyone. I get a few random people a week that follow me. I always check out the profile of the new follower and many times I have no idea why they are following me. Now I know! They want to increase their Twitter Ratio!

Well, I do think Twinfluence is pretty cool and need to spend more time understanding the formula. I encourage you to read Eric’s post on these tools and get in the conversation on his blog.

Happy New Year!