how b2b electronics media in north america are using twitter

INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter

www.publitek.com

INFLUENTIAL TWEETS

White Paper

How B2B electronics media inNorth America are using Twitter Issued in July 2013 (Research undertaken on 26 June 2013)

The contents of this White Paper are protected by copyright and must not be reproduced without permission© 2013 Publitek Ltd. All rights reserved

http://www.publitek.com/


This report examines how Twitter is used in the B2B electronics media sector,

focusing specifically on North American publications and associated journalists.

Four criteria have been used:

1. Activity levels

2. Social authority

3. Visibility

4. Time between tweets

These factors reveal tendencies which indicate how best to use Twitter as a marketing tool –for example, showing when to time your tweets, who is most influential and who has an effective online presence.

How are B2B electronics publications and journalists in North America using Twitter?

1. ACTIVITY LEVELS

Activity levels demonstrate peaks of Twitter usage across the day amongst each group. This, in turn, shows at which points of the day it is best to target publications’ and journalists’ Twitter feeds.

Publications

The above chart, Figure 1, displays the Twitter activity levels on publications’ accounts in hourly intervals across an average day (UTC time).

INFLUENTIAL TWEETS

www.publitek.com

By Jon Barrett, Digital Marketing Specialist, Publitek

See the table below, Table 1, for the time where the highest activity is recorded, and their conversion to the North American local times (EST/PST). Therefore, interacting with the media channels via Twitter is likely to be most fruitful during the time windows below. In both PST and EST time zones, high tweet activity is recorded from 09:00hrs, suggesting that Twitter is most widely used amongst the sample at the start of the working day.

Activity UTC EST PST21.8%10.9%

14:00 - 16:0017:00 - 18:00

09:00 - 11:0012:00 - 13:00

06:00 - 080009:00 - 10:00

Figure 1: Twitter activity levels for B2B electronics publications during the day

Table 1 Typical Twitter activity peaks created by B2B electronics media in North America

1

Time (UTC)



http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnydigital

http://twitter.com/publitek


Table 1 Typical Twitter activity peaks created by B2B electronics media in North America

www.publitek.com

Journalists

Figure 2 below demonstrates the activity levels on journalists’ accounts, again in hourly intervals across the day (UTC time).

As you can see, activity amongst journalists’ accounts is spread out across more hours of the day.

See Table 2 (below, right) for the time where the highest activity is recorded, and its conversion to the North American local times.

This may be due to their personal nature, as journalists’ accounts – it is more likely that tweets will be sent outside of office hours, as well as within them.

Despite the clear high taking place between 14:00hrs and 15:00hrs UTC, this implies that successful Twitter interaction would not be as dependent on the time of day in the same way as with publications’ accounts.

Another explanation for these activity levels is that some of these account owners are based in the UK (although they contribute to North American publications). The variety of time zones would therefore cause activity to spread over a wider period of time.

2. SOCIAL AUTHORITY

Social authority is a measure of the quality of a social media account; here our focus is Twitter. The ranking is a score out of 100 based on how much a Twitter user’s followers retweet and interact with their content, through favouriting tweets and also @mentioning the account.

Figure 2: Twitter activity levels for B2B electronics journalists in hourly intervals during the day

Table 2 Typical Twitter activity peaks created by electronics journalists in North America

Activity UTC EST PST9.3% 14:00 - 15:00 09:00 - 10:00

06:00 - 07:00

As shown in the pie charts in Figure 3 (on page 3), a high proportion of both publications and journalists have social authority scores of under 10. In fact, the highest publications’ score is just 63. As a whole, journalists’ accounts have much lower social authority scores than their corresponding publications (the highest score being 46).

This could be because the name of the publication is likely to be better known than its individual staff members, and would therefore attract more engagement. See the tables on the next page for the breakdown of the top five social authority scores for each sample.

2

Time (UTC)




www.publitek.com

Figure 3 Social authority of publications (left pie chart) and associated journalists (right chart) across North America’s electronics media

Interestingly, the top five journalists’ scores shown in Table 4 are rather dominated by individuals from Light Reading.

This is an exception to the general rule that journalists’ accounts have lower social authority scores than accounts; Light Reading’s account has a score of 12.

This suggests that better results with Light Reading would be obtained through communicating with the journalists, rather than the publications.

However, to truly make sense of these figures, it is important to consider that the calculation of social authority heavily relies on how much an account’s followers re-tweet and interact with its content, through favouriting tweets and @mentioning the account.

Therefore, social authority can be interpreted as an indicator of how the audience uses Twitter.

A common misconception exists that ‘engineers don’t like to use

Publication Twitter handle Authority IDC @IDC 63

Greentech Media @greentechmedia 60

IEEE Spectrum @IEEE Spectrum 59

EDN @EDNcom 49

EE Times @ eetimes 44

Authority Publication Twitter handle Authority Ray Le Maistre Light Reading @raylemaistre 46

Gabriel Brown Heavy Reading @Gabeuk 38

Ucilia WangMichelle Donegan

Greentech Media Light Reading

@UciliaWang @mpdonegan

37

Sarah Reedy Light Reading @SReedy 35

Don DingeeMike Demler

Left2MyOwnDevicesLinley Group

@L2myowndevices @MikeDemler

32

Table 3 Top social authority rankings of key B2B electronics publications in North America

Table 4 Top social authority scores for B2B electronics media journalists in North America

Twitter’, which may be reflected in the low interaction demonstrated through these figures. However, it’s possible that the audience does

not interactwith the content because they don’t like to use Twitter in this way, not because the content is poor quality.

3




Table 3 Top social authority rankings of key B2B electronics publications in North America

Table 4 Top social authority scores for B2B electronics media journalists in North America

www.publitek.com

Publication Twitter handle FollowersAudioXpress @AudioAmateur 67

Tech Design Forum @Updates2TDF 35

VITA Technologies @VitaTechnology 20

Table 5 The most followed B2B electronics media in North America

Although this seems to suggest that Twitter is less effective amongst the engineering community, let’s not forget that social authority can be misleading. Low engagement does not mean the content is not seen – so any client coverage is still visible, even if there’s no interaction.

Because of the nature of the audience and the figures, visibility is arguably more important a factor than social authority when looking to use Twitter successfully.

3. VISIBILITY

Numbers of followers is a good measure of visibility and the potential reach of tweeted content.

Publications

Table 5 (top right) shows the top 10 accounts with the most followers. Table 6 (opposite) shows the three publications with the least followers.

Journalists

Table 7 (bottom right) shows the top 10 accounts with the most followers. Table 8 (on the next page) shows the three accounts with the least followers.

4. FREQUENCY OF TWEETS

Frequency of tweets has been calculated by measuring the number of tweets an account has sent against how many days it has been active. This gives clues as to how useful certain accounts can be in terms of diffusing content. It also highlights any dormant accounts, so it becomes obvious which ones to avoid.

Publication Twitter handle FollowersIDC @IDC 35, 518

IEEE Spectrum @IEEESpectrum 31, 526

Greentech Media @greentechmedia 31, 061

NASA Tech Briefs @NASATechBriefs 9,717

EE Times @eetimes 9,348

EDN @EDNcom 9,163

Design News @DesignNews 7,574

Industrial Embedded @Industrial_mag 7,428

Prototype Today @prototypetoday 7,248

Electronic Design @ElectronicDesgn 6,231

Table 6 The least followed B2B electronics media in North America

Journalist Publication Twitter handle FollowersEric Wesoff Greentech Media @ewesoff 4,025

Ucila Wang Greentech Media @UciliaWang 3,526

Sarah Reedy Light Reading @SReedy 3,095

Gabriel Brown Heavy Reading @Gabeuk 2,703

Ray Le Maistre

Light Reading @raylemaistre 2,703

Dan Jones Light Reading @Dan_LRMobile 2,238

Jim Turleys ECD / EE Journal @ChipGuy 2,028

Mike Kanellos

Greentech Media @mikekanellos 1,958

Mike Demler

The Linley Group @MikeDemler 1,835

Michelle Donegan

Light Reading @mpdonegan 1,806

Table 7 The most followed journalists in North America’s B2B electronics media

4




www.publitek.com

Publication Twitter handle Number of hours between tweets

Woodstock Wire @WoodstockWire 1.19Light Reading @Light_Reading 2.33

Greentech Media @greentechmedia 2.33ECN Online @ecnonline 4.23

IEEE Spectrum @IEEESpectrum 4.64Electronics Sourcing @Electrosourcing 4.73

US Tech Global @USTechGlobal 5.68EDN @EDNcom 5.88

Control Design @Control_Design 6.39

Publication Twitter handle Number of days between tweets

VITA Technologies @VitaTechnology 45.1PowerPulse @PowerPulse 30.4

Heavy Reading @heavy_reading 29.8Embedded Developer @EmbeddedDev 28.6ConnectorSupplier @ConnSupplier 13.6The Linley Group @LinleyGroup 7.4

Tech Design Forum @Updates2TDF 7.0Chip Design @Chip_Design 6.9

Embedded Insights @EmbeddedInsight 5.3

Battery Power Mag @BatteryPowerMag 5.2

Journalist Twitter handle Associated Media Followers

Ed Sperling

@Chip_Insider System-Level Design and Low-Power/ HP Engineering

15

Barbara Jorgensen

@BarbJorgensen (Formerly) EBN 12

Stephen Evanczuk

@StephenEvanczuk EDN 9

Publications

Table 9 shows those North American electronics publications that have tweeted most frequently while Table 10 shows those publications that have tweeted least frequently.

Tweeting regularly forms an important part of building up a company’s internet presence, simply by putting themselves ‘out there’ and becoming noticed within the community they wish to address. It gives the impression that they are dynamic and active, with interesting contributions to make.

However, due to the nature of these publications as mediums for breaking news, tweeting regularly is essential. Tweeting infrequently could suggest that a publication is not up-to-date with latest developements.

So, frequent tweeting creates the right foundations to exploit when trying to gain client coverage through a publication’s Twitter output. The accounts which do this successfully are more likely to be taken seriously, with a follower community which will listen to and take on board their message.

Yet, frequency of tweets is open to interpretation. It is equally possible that accounts which tweet very regularly can make the follower community ‘switch off’ by clogging up their timelines. Here, judgement is key to getting the most out of Twitter: it is worth keeping an eye on the accounts highlighted in this

Table 8 The least followed journalists in North America’s B2B electronics media

Table 9 B2B electronics publications that have tweeted most frequently

Table 10 B2B electronics publications that have tweeted least frequently

5




Journalist Publication Twitter handle Average hours between tweets

Anshel Sag BSN @anshelsag 2.27Richard K. Wallace TheNextSiliconValley.com @TheNextSiValley 4.52

Mike Demler The Linley Group @MikeDemler 6.03Eric Wesoff Greentech Media @ewesoff 7.27

Sarah Reedy Light Reading @SReedy 8.56Gabriel Brown Heavy Reading @Gabeuk 8.85

Don Dingee L2myowndevices.com @L2myowndevices 9.33Clive (Max) Maxfield EE Times @MaxMaxfield 12.68

Michael Kanellos Greentech Media @mikekanellos 15.81

Stephen Law EP&T Magazine @EPTmagazine 15.97

Journalist Publication Twitter handle Average days between Tweet

Jim Harrison Electronics Products @JHarris99 846.5Jim Montague CCD & IN @jamesmontague 562.1Mark LaPedus EE Times @Mlapedus 209.8

Berge Ayvazian Heavy Reading @ayvaz 157.2

Barbara Jorgensen Electronic Buyers News @BarbJorgensen 106.2Amy Norcross EDN @aejn12 83.3

Kristin Lewotsky EE Times @KristinLewotsky 60.3Richard Comerford Electronic Products @rcomerford 52.7

Graham Finnie Heavy Reading @heavygraham 47.4

Warren Webb ECD @warrenwebb 35.8

section to gauge which one’s activity is most suitable for the way you intend to use Twitter.

Journalists

The table below (Table 11) shows the top 10 journalists who have tweeted most frequently.

Table 11 North American journalists working in the electronics sector that have tweeted most frequently

Table 12 Journalists in B2B electronics publications that have tweeted least frequently

These accounts generally have a higher number of hours between tweets in comparison with the top 10 publications’ accounts. This may be because publications’ accounts are often used for breaking news, which is why they tweet more frequently.

Equally, it is important to consider that some companies may have dedicated teams to monitor and use their publication’s Twitter account to maintain its internet presence, whereas journalists’ accounts would not be similarly handled.

www.publitek.com 6




Contact the authorContact Jon Barrett on: +44 (0) 1225 470000Email him at: [email protected] www.publitek.com for more information

Table 12 (on the previous page) shows the 10 journalists in the electronics media that have tweeted least frequently.

SUMMARY

Activity Levels

Publications – highest activity levels around the start of the day

Journalists – activity spread out more evenly across the day

Social Authority

Publications – highest score of 63. Range of 19 between the top 5.

Journalists – highest score of 46. Range of 14 between the top 5.

Generally, social authority is not hugely relevant to this sector. Scores may well be low because of their weighting on how much an account’s content is retweeted – therefore, it seems that social authority reveals more about the audience’s tendencies, rather than reflecting an account’s influence.

Visibility

Publications – highest number of followers: 35, 518. Range of 29, 287 between top 10.

Journalists – highest number of followers: 4025. Range of 2219 between top 10.

Recency of last tweet

Publications – significant majority had tweeted within the past 24 hours.

Journalists – a smaller proportion had tweeted within the past 24 hours.

It is possible that publications’ accounts tweet more regularly because they break news via Twitter and because dedicated teams look after the accounts, whereas this is not the case with journalists’ accounts.

Conclusion

Overall, the publications’ accounts generally seem to be better established than the journalists’ accounts – having higher numbers of followers, higher social authority scores, and more regularly tweets.

On the basis of our evidence, we suggest that in terms of diffusing content, it is better to target publications’ accounts to maximise the audience who will be seeing it.

Journalist accounts, however, should not be disregarded. They generally have less followers than publications, and seem to tweet less regularly: this means their timelines will be less clogged, which suggests they are more likely to respond to engagement such as @mentions.

So, these accounts are a good platform for building rapport.

Using this knowledge, along with the other information contained in this report, will be an invaluable way to tailor your marketing strategy to the North American B2B electronics media.

www.publitek.com 7



http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnydigital


About Publitek Publitek is the world’s leading digital marketing and technology PR agency for the B2B electronics industry. By complementing our in-house capabilities with proven partners, we offer a multi-lingual, global capability encompassing both corporate and technical communications.

Publitek Ltd, 18 Brock Street, Bath, BA1 2LWTel: +44 (0) 1225 470000

www.youtube.com/user/PublitekNews

https://en-gb.facebook.com/Publitek

https://plus.google.com/102325386146215343502

www.publitek.com/news/

www.linkedin.com/company/publitek

http://twitter.com/publitek
