UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

Is Twitter a Successful Channel to Users: a Case Study

Brian CostelloCentral Statistics Office

Ireland

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

An application for smart phones or....

Plus SMS!

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

Do you need to be sociable on Social Media?

Sociable?

Formal?

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

@CSOIreland adopted the following policy

• Tweets are issued containing the headline and a link for all statistical releases.

• A very limited number of other ad-hoc announcements are issued as tweets.

• @CSOIreland follows a limited number of state or international organisations.

• The Office does not engage with or respond to any tweets even if they refer to @CSOIreland or the CSO in general.

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

How do we manage our Twitter feed

• Google FeedBurner is used to take our latest releases RSS feed and push it into Twitter

• Ad hoc tweets are enter manually

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

How often to tweet?

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

Who are CSOIreland followers?

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

The number of Twitter followersCountry Population Followers Per 1000Canada 34,341,000 6,386 0.185New Zealand 4,398,700 1,020 0.231Slovenia 2,048,951 479 0.233Chile 17,185,800 4,272 0.248Ireland 4,470,700 1,380 0.308(February 2011)

In April 2011 followers had reached 1,800 and as of Monday last stands at 2,150

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

The Twitter space in Ireland

• The number of adults over the age of 15 with a Twitter account is 11%

• In March there were 177,000 active Twitter accounts.• 80,850 Twitter accounts are daily users.• 71% of Irish journalists use Twitter as a news source.• Re-tweets on Twitter account for 8-10% of traffic

(Source Ipsos MRBI and Knexsy March 2011)

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

Measuring retweet activity with Topsy.com

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

The highs......

• Everyone, say hello to @csoireland• @CSOIreland Its great to see the disability question on the

Census again. Very useful information for service planners.• I nominate @CSOIreland for a Shorty Award in #government

because they serve their purpose well on Twitter.• Lastly (these are really, really useful) @CSOIreland

@ElectionsIRL @Electionlit. End of #FF for this week.• Measuring Ireland's Progress. Loves it. http://bit.ly/bXsTAc

#statporn.• Very interesting from @CSOIreland - gap between public and

private sectors remains. http://bit.ly/cFVPwe (Full analysis on blog to come).

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

... and Lows

• Attempting to get some fisheries info from the @CSOIreland site. Most of the data only goes back to 2004 - I think a phone call is in order!

• Bad, bad Windows-dependent Irish gov stats site. http://t.co/MEW7ASS

• Trying to figure out the gender split in Ireland. http://cso.ie not being awfully helpful :S

• Lies, damned lies RT @CSOIreland: Tomorrow, 20.10.2010 is World Statistics Day

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

The Costs and BenefitsCosts• Set up of FeedBurner to

push out RSS feed to Twitter.• Issuing ad hoc Tweets.• Monitoring activity on

Twitter related to the @CSOIreland .

• Checking on new followers.

Benefits• Mobile phone notification

available to our users via SMS.

• Short URL references provided.

• CSO management team informed.

• Feedback from mentions and retweets.

• Expanded brand coverage

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011

Advice – decide on a tweeting policy

or?

UNECE Communication of Statistics, Geneva, 29 June 2011