State of the Edmonton Twittersphere 2012 – Users & Clients

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This is the second part in my State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for 2012 – you can read the overview post here (and here is the users & clients post for 2011). As we saw in that entry, more than 105,000 local users posted at least one tweet in 2012. Let’s take a closer look at users and the tools they used to post tweets.

While a large number of users posted at least one tweet throughout the year, there are fewer users who post something in any given month. Keeping in mind that November is underrepresented in this chart, we can see that October had the most active users at nearly 52,000, and the trend is very clearly going up.

Again I think it is really interesting to look at this data over the longer term. Here’s a look at the growth in monthly active users since I started tracking data in 2009:

There are a small number of really active users, and a much larger number of less active users. In 2012, the top 100 most active users accounted for about 1.5 million or 8.8% of all local tweets (that’s down from 16% in 2011).

Here are the 25 most active users:

  1. MadMissee
  2. KikkiPlanet
  3. theleanover
  4. rootnl2k
  5. JameyMPhoto
  6. JovanHeer
  7. markyeg
  8. TrevorBoller
  9. Klayoven
  10. CommonSenseSoc
  11. prabhjots5
  12. Leask
  13. canadianglen
  14. edmontonjournal
  15. Walleedj
  16. PetitMonstre77
  17. alannafletcher
  18. AskMartyMisner
  19. ZoomJer
  20. MandaTRT
  21. jmschow
  22. DerrickDodgeYeg
  23. Pokerclack
  24. YEGlifer
  25. scottyos

Here are the 5 most active bots or automated feeds:

  1. EdmontonBizcaf
  2. GCAccess
  3. yegtraffic
  4. EdmCa
  5. yegwx

Combined, the top 30 users accounted for about 4.6% of all local tweets (down from 8.3% last year).

Here are the 25 most active users using #yeg:

  1. ctvedmonton
  2. DerrickDodgeYeg
  3. CBCEdmonton
  4. iNews880
  5. metroedmonton
  6. Edmontonsun
  7. edmontonjournal
  8. JBH8
  9. 1049VirginYEG
  10. RobWilliamsCTV
  11. GlobalEdmonton
  12. JOEFM
  13. lindork
  14. MaddCashFS
  15. 1023nowradio
  16. BTEdmonton
  17. OFSS1969
  18. SpontainRichFS
  19. TrevorBoller
  20. oldstrathcona
  21. KikkiPlanet
  22. EJ_Arts
  23. DebraWard
  24. artrubicon
  25. CommonSenseSoc

Here are the 5 most active bots or automated feeds using #yeg:

  1. EdmCa
  2. yegwx
  3. yegsphere
  4. yegtraffic
  5. hiresuccessjobs

The top 100 most active users using #yeg and related tags accounted for 1.4% of all local tweets, and 25.8% of all #yeg-tagged tweets, down from 30.3% last year.

Here are the 25 most replied to users (by other local users):

  1. KikkiPlanet
  2. JenBanksYEG
  3. JasonGregor
  4. nielson1260
  5. JameyMPhoto
  6. ZoomJer
  7. TrevorBoller
  8. Leask
  9. CommonSenseSoc
  10. britl
  11. YEGlifer
  12. Pokerclack
  13. Wildsau
  14. EdmontonOilers
  15. baconhound
  16. Luzzara
  17. BigAddie
  18. theleanover
  19. dantencer
  20. CopperTopper_85
  21. dstaples
  22. bananaramafoFin
  23. lindork
  24. Kristinnuendo
  25. amvanimere

Those 25 users accounted for 8.3% of all local replies, down from 11.2% last year. The top 100 most replied to local users accounted for 2.7% of all local tweets and 18.7% of all local replies (compared to 24.5% last year).

I think the retweet is one of the most valuable metrics on Twitter. Anyone can post a lot, or gain a lot of followers, but to get retweeted by lots of other people you need to be useful/interesting/funny/inspiring/etc. In the past I have just produced one list of the most retweeted users, but this year I decided to separate individuals from organizations.

Here are the 25 most retweeted non-individual users:

  1. edmontonjournal
  2. ctvedmonton
  3. EdmontonOilers
  4. metroedmonton
  5. CBCEdmonton
  6. GlobalEdmonton
  7. yegtraffic
  8. CityofEdmonton
  9. EdmOilKings
  10. Edmontonsun
  11. edmontonpolice
  12. HopeMission
  13. UAlberta
  14. EdmontonHumane
  15. iNews880
  16. CISNCountry
  17. AvenueEdmonton
  18. cfl_esks
  19. EJ_Extra
  20. oldstrathcona
  21. BlitzEdmonton
  22. TBSonK97
  23. sonic1029
  24. DerrickDodgeYeg
  25. FlyEIA

Here are the 25 most retweeted individual users:

  1. KikkiPlanet
  2. Paulatics
  3. mastermaq
  4. dantencer
  5. JasonGregor
  6. hallsy04
  7. joshclassenCTV
  8. CstPower
  9. ryanjespersen
  10. dstaples
  11. britl
  12. davecournoyer
  13. TrevorBoller
  14. lindork
  15. VassyKapelos
  16. sunterryjones
  17. ebs_14
  18. SBarsbyweather
  19. ChrisTse_
  20. nielson1260
  21. Wildsau
  22. GenePrincipe
  23. JameyMPhoto
  24. etownmickey
  25. bingofuel

A total of 59 users were retweeted by other local users 1000 times or more. Just 7 users were retweeted more than 5000 times, and @KikkiPlanet was the only individual in that group. Just like last year, only @EdmontonJournal was retweeted more than 10,000 times.

I did not keep track of the most followed users this year, primarily because the information is readily available elsewhere. If you want to know who the most followed users in Edmonton are, check out Twopcharts.

Clients

More than 3800 different applications and services were used to post tweets in 2012, up slightly from more than 3100 last year. For the first time since I have been tracking stats, the web is no longer the top dog! Here are the top ten:

  1. Twitter for iPhone
  2. web
  3. Twitter for BlackBerry®
  4. Twitter for Android
  5. TweetDeck
  6. HootSuite
  7. Instagram
  8. Facebook
  9. Tweet Button
  10. Echofon

The top ten clients accounted for 82.9% of all local tweets posted in 2012 (compared to 76.8% last year).

Coming Up

  1. Overview
  2. Users & Clients
  3. Hashtags & Links

Published by Mack Male

Mack is on a mission to change the world through code and prose. An entrepreneurial journalist based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Mack is the co-founder of Taproot Publishing, a digital publishing company that helps communities understand themselves better.

Published

16 thoughts on “State of the Edmonton Twittersphere 2012 – Users & Clients”

  2. As always, a fantastic roundup of stats and information building here to the stunning 3rd part conclusion!

    I wonder if Twitter for iPhone/Android would include tablets, or if they didn’t even crack the top 10.

    Reply

  4. By “most active users”, do you mean posted the most updates? And if so, would a retweet of someone else’s post count as an update in that total? Just trying to know what methods you use.

    And I find it pretty funny that @rootnl2k’s account has been suspended. Remember the Wednesday Follow Friday previews, consisting of a script that basically listed all of his followers over a series of several dozen tweets? Yeah, that was awesome.

    We need to find a way to determine which users did the most good. I’d nominate @CynthiaStrawson for her Christmas Wish. Maybe I can nominate her for the @yeggies.

    -Jerry

    Reply

    1. Yes, I mean users who posted the most updates when I say “most active”. The answer about the retweet of someone else’s post is that “it depends”. I look at custom retweets too, where the user adds a comment, so those definitely count. Some of the others do, depending on how the API returns it.

      You should definitely nominate people for the Yeggies!

      Reply

  5. oh mans…i remember being on that list…heh and this came out on my 9 month anniversary of quitting (with the exception of stalking @tbaglenz’s tweets and searching traffic reports)

    Reply
  7. Pingback: KikkiPlanet.com … Most Fascinating #yeg Twitter Accounts of 2012

  8. I’m not “shocked” but perhaps maybe disappointed (certainly not in the people doing the tweeting but in the reality of it) to see the very strong representation of traditional local media, and those affiliated with it leading the discussion on Twitter as well.

    Not because those people aren’t posting great stuff and aren’t worth following, I certainly follow, tweet at, and retweet many of those people but perhaps because it’s showing that Twitter hasn’t “democratized” the local conversation like many hoped.

    Reply

    1. I hear what you’re saying, but I think the lists in this post are the wrong information upon which to draw your conclusion. If you look at the overview post, you’ll see that the number of users and tweets went up, and that the number of #yeg-tagged tweets actually went down (as a percentage). That suggests to me that more “average” folks are using Twitter now.

      I suppose what I should do is produce a list of the most retweeted people by Edmontonians, and see how many local folks are on it.

      Reply
  9. Pingback: State of the Edmonton Twittersphere 2013: Top Users & Tools - MasterMaq's Blog

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