How One Retweet Reached 170,000 followers

I share charts daily using Posterous. Business professionals can refer to this chartstream to find charts to help them build business cases, presentations etc.

Yesterday, I tweeted about a study that says over 39% of twitter users use 4 or more devices to tweet (I use my iPod and laptop). Here’s a screenshot of the tweet.

This demonstrates the “network effect” of twitter and the the impact sharing can have on your reach. Here’s what happened:

• I created a compelling headline and gave credit to the source provider
• My tweet went out at 3:15pm. This is like the “rush hour” of twitter traffic and use
• The tweet was retweeted by Telesian Technology and Joe Bob Hester
• The Telesian retweet was in turn retweeted by eMarketer, Twitter Tips and Shari Worthington in a short time span
• I checked to see who these folks were, what they did and how many followers they had
• I found some really cool people/orgs including: Accessible Twitter, Chris_JB and IT/Publishing/Usability expert and Joe Bob Hester a Professor at UNC and a member of Social Media Marketing Magazine’s Top Marketing Profs on Twitter. Here’s the Twitter list if you want to follow the group

The diagram below illustrates this”network effect” of twitter. [Click on the image twice to see it in full size]

Summary

• Only those that follow me would have seen my tweet. Only two of my followers retweeted my tweet but their networks extended my reach exponentially.
• Don’t let the 170K followers number mislead you though. First of all, not everyone would have read it and many of these folks don’t need marketing services and solutions from MI6. If you do, feel free to connect with me. But it may have demonstrated, to some, that I offer useful information that could help them be successful. A core purpose of mine.
• It also helped me discover some interesting people that I’ve followed and/or added to some Twitter lists.