I have been writting and recommending using Twitter for more than a year. But curiously Israel is only discovering now the phenomenon and probably driven by the US crazyness around the service (Oprah, Gavin Newsome, Kutcher-Crunch...) the israeli media also understand something is going on. I was interviewed this week by Noah Pereg from the Globes who wrote a nice article about the service (with unfortunately a pathetic series of mostly stupid comments).
I declare there that twitter will grow strong in Israel as long as 1. media start using is smartly (like CNN) 2. mainstream non-tech personalities will use (will be happening soon)
For now Twitter in Israel is much much smaller than Facebook. But this will change. There are a few thousands of users maybe. I have seen lately an acceleration in users requests coming from Israel. I think this is just the beginning. Learning Twitter is simple although there are endless possibilities. But most people will get it.
Now the article is presenting a list of the top 10 Israelis twitter users. The article present them as "most active", which is wrong. the level of activity on Twitter is not defined by the number of personns that follow you but how engaging you are (publishing vs reply). Anyway, I was curious to dig behind this list, since i was surprised to see users with more than 10k followers that i never heard of
I used our own service Topify which presents smart data about twitter users so you can have a better idea of who to follow and who not to. I am sharing that data here. Here is what you can learn
- Usually a ratio following/follower close to 1 is not a good sign. it means either the user is actively trying to gain followers by following a maximum of person (hoping a follow back in return) or using auto follow features (that twitter disabled, but enabled buy 3rd parties like Tweetlater or TwitterMass)
- It is even worse when associated with a high number of followers
- A high number of updates per day is usually a sign of spammy activity (more than 20/30 per day)
- A low number means your account is closed to dead (FoxyTunes) even if you have a lot of followers (Obama case)
- This week we included stats from MrTweet who analyzes the data of the users in a more granular way. Users with High or low level of conversation should be considered with care. Same thing with those sharing too much or no links
- you can also associate the recency of the account. The more the activity is high and recency high, the more you should be careful.
Bottom line: in this list i see at least 3 or 4 accounts that are potentially not worth following (the first 3), 1 close to dead (FoxyTunesDJ). I would definitely follow @orli and @VCfreak (although this one is a mystery). I would also follow accounts from some israeli media (nana10, @guyzo - Guy Zohar, jpost,..) to start of. would follow @TechAviv if you are in tech and some great guys like Yaron Samid, Yaron Galai...If you are into VC Daniel Cohen (my colleague), CarmelVentures, Michael Eisenberg....There is even an account to track the day of the Omer (period between Pessah and Chavouot) and the level of the kinneret (which should be promoted on the TV ads for water)...You ll find tones of great accounts out there.
The key message of this post: beware who you follow if you start on twitter. Could end up in a big time waste (use Topify.com for example). I personnally avoid the ratio 1 following/follower with high or low level of engagement. I pay attention to the last updates and to the bio.
I believe that the top 10 most active Twitter users in Israel are not all in that list. I will wait a little more time before i publish a personnal one.
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