This year,
we decided to launch the ‘Crystal PR IFC Media Tweet-dex’, to get a better
understanding of how the media in different International Finance Centres (IFCs)
are using Twitter.
There’s no
doubt that Twitter is being used more and more by media outlets for researching,
breaking and developing news stories. In a market where there is such
competition between jurisdictions, it’s interesting to put things in an international
context.
Initially,
the Index seeks to identify the most followed media and the keenest media users
of Twitter across the chosen jurisdictions. The IFCs currently
being monitored are the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man,
Jersey and Malta,
with the key media in each jurisdiction being included in the results – the range
of jurisdictions and media may be extended in due course.
The results
for the first quarter of 2012, January to March, are as follows:
Tweet Frequency
This
measures the number of tweets by each media, both as an accumulative total since
they started tweeting and during the quarter. The key findings are as follows:
- Channel TV (@channelonline) was the most prolific media tweeter in the first quarter of 2012 with 1,086 tweets over the three month period. The Guernsey Press (@guernseypress) tweeted the second most (982 tweets).
- BBC Isle of Man tweeted the least during the quarter, 183 times
Followers of IFC Media
This measures the popularity of each media Tweeter through the number of followers they have in total and the rate at which they are growing their number of followers. The key findings are as follows:
- The Isle of Man Examiner (@iomnewspapers) increased its number of followers most during the first quarter of 2012, by 23.8%. This was followed by BBC Radio Guernsey (@bbcguernsey) which increased its followers by 21.8%.
- Channel TV (@channelonline) is the most followed media in the IFCs with 3,585 followers. Jersey radio station Channel 103 (@channel103news) is second most followed (2,594).
- The Times of Malta (@thetimesofmalta) was the least followed media in the IFCs covered, with 479 followers.
- Despite having the fifth highest number of followers, BBC Isle of Man (@bbcisleofman) increased its number of followers the least, by 6.6%.
These first
quarterly results paint an interesting picture. Twitter is not being used by
any one form of media, with a good mix of print and broadcast media using
Twitter regularly. That Channel TV tops both the Tweet Frequency and Followers
tables, and with BBC Guernsey and the Jersey Evening Post performing well in
both set of results too, shows that there is a good correlation between how
frequently Twitter is used and gaining followers.
Except for
Malta, where the Times of Malta is both the least frequent and least followed
media included, there is evidence of good use of Twitter across the IFCs, with
the Channel Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and Isle of Man media all
demonstrating a consistent use of Twitter.
To begin
with, these results are fairly rudimentary – how frequently the media use
Twitter and who is following them. In due course, the intention is that this
Tweet-dex can be extended to include more jurisdictions and more media, and to
analyse in greater detail the message content of the media using Twitter.
Adam Riddell
adam@crystalpr.co.uk
