IN THE PICTURE
AN ANALYSIS OF YOUR TWITTER FOLLOWERS
BRITISH CANOEING
ANALYSIS OF TWITTER FOLLOWERS
Analysing existing data - your own internal data, ratings and review sites or social media - can give powerful insight into the performance of an organisation.
In this presentation we have analysed your Twitter followers to understand your performance in attracting followers over time and trends in the number of followers you share with other sports related bodies. We have also plotted the network of accounts that are important and influential to your followers.
This information will help your marketing and social media teams to build engagement and will be of interest to all in your organisation who are keen to grow the sport.
The data in this presentation is a light touch review. It provides solid business insights in summary form. We would be pleased to put together something more detailed and bespoke for you.
PARTICIPATION RATES
Before analysing your Twitter followers it is important to look at the trends in participation rates as this will place greater context onto the analysis that follows.
Data from Sport England's Active Lives Survey shows that participation by adults in England, at least once in the last 12 months, has returned to very close to pre-pandemic levels. Regular participation (twice in the last 28 days) has also returned to previous levels.
Prior to the pandemic, participation in canoeing was on an upward curve and is showing good signs of recovery among casual participants. Rates for regular participants have been around the 0.4% mark for the last few years.
The challenge for British Canoeing is to get participation back on its upwards trajectory.
FOLLOWERS OVER TIME
The graphic shows the number of new followers on Twitter for each year since 2011.
The chart shows that there was a huge spike in new followers in 2015 and again in 2016, coinciding with the Olympic games in Rio. Since then, the number of new followers has been on a steady decline apart from a small bounce in 2020 and 2021. We have seen similar lockdown bounces in other sports as people took to social media to keep engaged with sport.
The mini bounce in the run up to the Tokyo Olympics was followed by a sharp drop in new followers and this will need to be reversed to encourage more people to be interested in canoeing.
ASSOCIATED ACCOUNTS
This chart shows the number of new followers who also follow other sports related organisations.
The graphic shows that the number of new followers with shared interests in other sports displays the same pattern of spike in 2015/16 followed by a fall off.
Cycling and rugby have traditionally been sports that your followers also follow with athletics and rowing also popular.
Cross pollination with other sports is important because research shows that people who are already engaged with one sport or more likely to become engaged with another, compared with those who follow no sports. Appealing to people who follow other sports is a good way to promote participation in your sport.
NETWORK ANALYSIS
We' ve mapped who your Twitter followers also follow to produce a network analysis. A network analysis is a graphical representation of the relationships between nodes (in this case Twitter accounts) and the lines that connect them (in this case shared followers) known as edges.
Network analysis is used to understand the relationships between organisations. By graphing the connections between them we can see which accounts are the most important to people in the network. The size of the node reflects how many connections the account has. The bigger the node the more connections. The width of the edge represents the number of that account's followers that are shared with the account it connects to. The thicker the line the greater the number of shared Twitter followers. The network also identifies clusters of accounts that have things in common.
From this we can assess which types of accounts are the most influential over the network. The analysis is important because information tends to flow through the most influential accounts.
To be included in the network, the number of shared followers must represent a reasonable proportion of both yours and their total followers. This means that accounts such as Barack Obama and Gary Lineker, who have millions of followers, are not included in the network because although a lot of your followers also follow them, the number of followers you share with them is a very small proportion of their total followers. The accounts that we include in the network are, therefore, defined as the most relevant to you.
ANALYISNG THE NETWORK
Hover over an individual account to view its connections. Zoom in to show specific parts of the network. Zoom out to show the overall network. Use the 🔄 button to reset the view.
On the Community tab you will see four communities denoted by different colours.
The 1st community, in blue, is predominantly people and organisations connected with the environment, nature and sustainability.
The 2nd, in the purple, is predominantly Teams GB athletes and sports accounts.
The 3rd community, presented in light green, consists primary of outdoor pursuits accounts.
The 4th community, in the darker green, is a combination of high profile campaigners, lawyers and celebrities.
The British Canoeing is presented in red.
We also show a split in the network by gender. The nature and environment community skews to female, with the other communities skewing male.
THE KEY TAKE AWAYS
- Currently you have around 12,200 Twitter followers and apart from a huge peak in 2015/16, the trajectory in the number of new followers is downwards. We recommend developing a social media strategy for increasing the number of new followers every year at a higher level than the existing trend.
- The make up of your network shows differences in male and female interests which could be leveraged to generate marketing content that will appeal to both.
- It also shows that there are accounts of common interest which could be leveraged to promote engagement with both existing and new followers. For example, Julia Bradbury and Feargal Sharkey are popular with your network. There are marketing opportunities here.
- It would be useful to strengthen your alignment with other sports to build on a shared interest in sport with their followers, which in turn can help you grow. Cycling and rugby are particularly popular with your followers and represent a good starting point.