This is an occasional update on the main Twitter accounts of some of our favourite wildlife organisations (and BASC and GWCT).
The table below shows the number of followers in thousands (NT 886,000 followers).
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 these organisations are aiming to do with all their Twitter accounts, so it’s very difficult to know which is succeeding most.
@national trust 880
@chrisgpackham 421
@natures_voice 360
@wwf_uk 244
@woodlandtrust 227
@wildlifetrusts 205
@_BTO 97
@Birdlife_news 79
@savebutterflies 75
@buzz_dont_tweet 52
@mcsuk 51
@_BCT_ 47
@markavery 44
@love_plants 43
@WWTworldwide 38
@worldlandtrust 26
@BASCnews 26
@gameandwildlife 18
As you say there are lots of caveats. Another would be who the followers include – a few highly influential followers probably count for a very large number of ‘men and women in the street’ in terms of advancing your agenda. Nevertheless the numbers do reflect something real even if its hard to put your finger on exactly what it is. It would be interesting to know how these numbers are changing over time – is anyone coming up fast on the inside and is someone else slipping down the rankings?