I can’t beleive that it’s almost 18 months since I updated this list of Twitter accounts from some of our favourite wildlife organisations (and BASC and GWCT). But, apparently it is.
My Twitter following passed 25,000 a little while ago so I thought that rather than preen myself on the size of my achievement I’d look at it in context – very wise, the whole world is growing their Twitter accounts.
The table below shows the number of followers in thousands (NT 503,000 followers) and the % change since September 2014. In that time the BTO (@_BTO) has moved up a place in the list, and so has Buglife (@buzz_dont_tweet), but essentially there is little change.
A caveat: you can’t judge a man, or an organisation, by the size of their Twitter following, but in a world of social media growth, and in a field where communication is quite important, these things are of passing interest.
One more caveat: lots of followers doesn’t mean that anyone likes or even reads your tweets. I follow several of these accounts without paying them much attention most of the time.
Another caveat: other social media outlets are available, eg Facebook, tumblr etc
Yet another caveat: many of these organisations have multiple Twitter accounts (so do I; @fightingforbirds and @Inglorious_Book).
Last caveat: probably no single person on Earth knows what this list of organisations are aiming to do with all their Twitter accounts, so it’s very difficult to know which is succeeding most.
@national trust 503 +90%
@natures_voice 207 +73%
@wwf_uk 177 +113%
@woodlandtrust 106 +65%
@wildlifetrusts 80 +100%
@_BTO 50 +61%
@Birdlife_news 46 +44%
@savebutterflies 37 +54%
@_BCT_ 31 +48%
@buzz_dont_tweet 28 +55%
@WWTworldwide 26 +37%
@markavery 25 +56%
@mcsuk 20 +33%
@loveplants 19 +46%
@worldlandtrust 17 +42%
@BASCnews 13 +44%
@gameandwildlife 9 +125%
One day I really will get around to giving a view on these so-called social media accounts because there are, I think, some interesting ways in which they are used. Some are not very social, for a start!
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Mark, re your last caveat – ‘Probably no single person on Earth knows what this list of organisations are aiming to do with all their Twitter accounts, so it’s very difficult to know which is succeeding most’. That’s very true, but in my opinion the bigger problem is that most if not all the organisations also have no clue as to what they are trying to do with their Twitter accounts. It seems to be something that they feel they must have in order to be seen to be relevant and modern, but there’s no strategy as to how it should be used. This is why most of their tweets are dull as ditchwater and we all (not just you!) end up paying them little or no attention. Personally I’ve given up Twitter altogether.
With a great deal of effort, I’ve achieved 500 reasonably genuine followers. I follow about 300 carefully selected tweeters and try to read all tweets daily. If you really want to be effective it needs much effort and time. I’m not at all jealous of Justin Bieber who has millions of followers from not much effort at all, and enormous influence for good or ill. In between there are people like Mark Avery and George Monbiot who by dogged determination have built a faithful following.
Good point about following not necessarily meaning reading. I’m finding Facebook works better for us these days – half the followers, but they tend to engage more and a post to them will yield higher results than a tweet(s).