The verdict is in. Despite my informal experiment just over a year ago that drew roughly the same conclusions, researchers presented on Monday research results that found the following:

“Drawing a huge following on Twitter does not necessarily mean that your tweets will have much influence. It turns out that some noncelebrities with meager followings have the greatest ability to start discussions and spread ideas.”

Such a result punches holes in the hype surrounding high Twitter follower numbers; in other words, something else – newsworthiness, perhaps – generates viral retweets and influences discussions on Twitter, not the number of people following your account.

A prediction: These numbers would be much different if the same research was conducted on tweets from November 2009. The reason is because large numbers of followers potentially became even more meaningless once Twitter created lists – the ability to merely read the tweets of a much smaller subset of your followers.

This was the reason I deleted my personal Twitter account around the same time; with my current account, I have customized lists I read regularly while the main Twitter stream is more easily ignored. (Be honest, you probably do the same.)

The results of this study nevertheless continuse to support the notion that social media hype should continue to be viewed with skepticism.

Thanks to Nevada Writer for sending me the article today discussing the research results.

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