This report examines how Twitter is used in the B2B electronics media sector, focusing specifically on North American publications and associated journalists.

1. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
INFLUENTIAL TWEETS
White Paper
How B2B electronics media in
North America are using Twitter
Issued in July 2013 (Research undertaken on 26 June 2013)
The contents of this White Paper are protected by
copyright and must not be reproduced without permission
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2. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
INFLUENTIAL TWEETS
How are B2B electronics publications
and journalists in North America using Twitter?
By Jon Barrett, Digital Marketing Specialist, Publitek
Figure 1: Twitter activity levels for B2B
electronics publications during the day
Time (UTC)
T
his report examines how
Twitter is used in the B2B
electronics media sector,
focusing specifically on North
American publications and
associated journalists.
Four criteria have been used:
1. Activity levels
2. Social authority
3. Visibility
4. Time between tweets
These factors reveal tendencies
which indicate how best to use
Twitter as a marketing tool –
for example, showing when to
time your tweets, who is most
influential and who has an
effective online presence.
1
1. ACTIVITY LEVELS
Activity levels demonstrate peaks
of Twitter usage across the day
amongst each group. This, in turn,
shows at which points of the day it
is best to target publications’ and
journalists’ Twitter feeds.
Publications
The above chart, Figure 1,
displays the Twitter activity levels
on publications’ accounts in hourly
intervals across an average day
(UTC time).
Activity
21.8%
10.9%
UTC
14:00 - 16:00
17:00 - 18:00
See the table below, Table 1,
for the time where the highest
activity is recorded, and
their conversion to the North
American local times (EST/PST).
Therefore, interacting with the
media channels via Twitter is
likely to be most fruitful during
the time windows below. In both
PST and EST time zones, high
tweet activity is recorded from
09:00hrs, suggesting that Twitter
is most widely used amongst
the sample at the start of the
working day.
EST
09:00 - 11:00
12:00 - 13:00
PST
06:00 - 0800
09:00 - 10:00
Table 1 Typical Twitter activity peaks created by B2B electronics media in North America
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3. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
Journalists
Figure 2 below demonstrates
the activity levels on journalists’
accounts, again in hourly intervals
across the day (UTC time).
As you can see, activity amongst
journalists’ accounts is spread out
across more hours of the day.
See Table 2 (below, right) for the
time where the highest activity is
recorded, and its conversion to the
North American local times.
This may be due to their personal
nature, as journalists’ accounts –
it is more likely that tweets will be
sent outside of office hours, as well
as within them.
Despite the clear high taking place
between 14:00hrs and 15:00hrs
UTC, this implies that successful
Twitter interaction would not be as
dependent on the time of day in
the same way as with publications’
accounts.
Another explanation for these
activity levels is that some
of these account owners are
based in the UK (although they
contribute to North American
publications). The variety of time
zones would therefore cause
activity to spread over a wider
period of time.
2. SOCIAL AUTHORITY
As shown in the pie charts in
Figure 3 (on page 3), a high
proportion of both publications
and journalists have social
authority scores of under 10.
In fact, the highest publications’
score is just 63. As a whole,
journalists’ accounts have much
lower social authority scores than
their corresponding publications
(the highest score being 46).
Social authority is a measure of
the quality of a social media
account; here our focus is Twitter.
The ranking is a score out of 100
based on how much a Twitter
user’s followers retweet and
interact with their content, through
favouriting tweets and also
@mentioning the account.
This could be because the name
of the publication is likely
to be better known than its
individual staff members, and
would therefore attract more
engagement. See the tables on
the next page for the breakdown
of the top five social authority
scores for each sample.
Activity
9.3%
UTC
14:00 - 15:00
EST
09:00 - 10:00
PST
06:00 - 07:00
Table 2 Typical Twitter activity peaks created by electronics journalists in North America
Time (UTC)
Figure 2: Twitter activity levels for B2B electronics journalists in hourly intervals during the day
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2

4. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
Figure 3 Social authority of publications (left pie chart) and associated journalists (right chart) across North America’s electronics media
Interestingly, the top five
journalists’ scores shown in
Table 4 are rather dominated by
individuals from Light Reading.
This is an exception to the general
rule that journalists’ accounts have
lower social authority scores than
accounts; Light Reading’s account
has a score of 12.
This suggests that better results
with Light Reading would be
obtained through communicating
with the journalists, rather than the
publications.
However, to truly make sense of
these figures, it is important to
consider that the calculation of
social authority heavily relies on
how much an account’s followers
re-tweet and interact with its
content, through favouriting tweets
and @mentioning the account.
Therefore, social authority can be
interpreted as an indicator of how
the audience uses Twitter.
A common misconception exists
that ‘engineers don’t like to use
3
Publication
Twitter handle
Authority
IDC
@IDC
63
Greentech Media
@greentechmedia
60
IEEE Spectrum
@IEEE Spectrum
59
EDN
@EDNcom
49
EE Times
@ eetimes
44
Table 3 Top social authority rankings of key B2B electronics publications in North America
Authority
Publication
Twitter handle
Authority
Ray Le Maistre
Light Reading
@raylemaistre
46
Gabriel Brown
Heavy Reading
@Gabeuk
38
Ucilia Wang
Michelle Donegan
Greentech Media
Light Reading
@UciliaWang
@mpdonegan
37
Sarah Reedy
Light Reading
@SReedy
35
Don Dingee
Mike Demler
Left2MyOwnDevices
Linley Group
@L2myowndevices
@MikeDemler
32
Table 4 Top social authority scores for B2B electronics media journalists in North America
Twitter’, which may be reflected in
the low interaction demonstrated
through these figures. However, it’s
possible that the audience does
not interactwith the content because
they don’t like to use Twitter in this
way, not because the content is
poor quality.
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5. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
Although this seems to suggest that
Twitter is less effective amongst
the engineering community, let’s
not forget that social authority can
be misleading. Low engagement
does not mean the content is not
seen – so any client coverage
is still visible, even if there’s no
interaction.
Because of the nature of the
audience and the figures, visibility
is arguably more important a
factor than social authority when
looking to use Twitter successfully.
3. VISIBILITY
Numbers of followers is a good
measure of visibility and the
potential reach of tweeted content.
Publication
Twitter handle
Followers
IDC
@IDC
35, 518
IEEE Spectrum
@IEEESpectrum
31, 526
Greentech Media
@greentechmedia
31, 061
NASA Tech Briefs
@NASATechBriefs
9,717
EE Times
@eetimes
9,348
EDN
@EDNcom
9,163
Design News
@DesignNews
7,574
Industrial Embedded
@Industrial_mag
7,428
Prototype Today
@prototypetoday
7,248
Electronic Design
@ElectronicDesgn
6,231
Table 5 The most followed B2B electronics media in North America
Publication
Twitter handle
Followers
AudioXpress
@AudioAmateur
67
Publications
Tech Design Forum
@Updates2TDF
35
Table 5 (top right) shows the
top 10 accounts with the most
followers. Table 6 (opposite)
shows the three publications with
the least followers.
VITA Technologies
@VitaTechnology
20
Table 6 The least followed B2B electronics media in North America
Journalist
Publication
Twitter handle
Followers
Eric Wesoff
Greentech Media
@ewesoff
4,025
Ucila Wang
Greentech Media
@UciliaWang
3,526
Sarah Reedy
Light Reading
@SReedy
3,095
Gabriel Brown
Heavy Reading
@Gabeuk
2,703
Ray
Le Maistre
Light Reading
@raylemaistre
2,703
4. FREQUENCY OF TWEETS
Dan Jones
Light Reading
@Dan_LRMobile
2,238
Frequency of tweets has been
calculated by measuring the
number of tweets an account has
sent against how many days it has
been active. This gives clues as to
how useful certain accounts can be
in terms of diffusing content. It also
highlights any dormant accounts,
so it becomes obvious which ones
to avoid.
Jim Turleys
ECD / EE Journal
@ChipGuy
2,028
Mike
Kanellos
Greentech Media
@mikekanellos
1,958
Mike
Demler
The Linley Group
@MikeDemler
1,835
Michelle
Donegan
Light Reading
@mpdonegan
1,806
Journalists
Table 7 (bottom right) shows the
top 10 accounts with the most
followers. Table 8 (on the next
page) shows the three accounts
with the least followers.
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Table 7 The most followed journalists in North America’s B2B electronics media
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6. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
Journalist
Ed
Sperling
Twitter handle
@Chip_Insider
Associated Media Followers
System-Level Design
15
Barbara
Jorgensen
@BarbJorgensen
(Formerly) EBN
12
Stephen
Evanczuk
@StephenEvanczuk
EDN
9
and Low-Power/
HP Engineering
Table 8 The least followed journalists in North America’s B2B electronics media
Publication
Twitter handle
Woodstock Wire
Light Reading
Greentech Media
ECN Online
IEEE Spectrum
Electronics Sourcing
US Tech Global
EDN
Control Design
@WoodstockWire
@Light_Reading
@greentechmedia
@ecnonline
@IEEESpectrum
@Electrosourcing
@USTechGlobal
@EDNcom
@Control_Design
Number of hours
between tweets
1.19
2.33
2.33
4.23
4.64
4.73
5.68
5.88
6.39
Table 9 B2B electronics publications that have tweeted most frequently
Publication
Twitter handle
VITA Technologies
PowerPulse
Heavy Reading
ConnectorSupplier
The Linley Group
Tech Design Forum
Chip Design
Embedded Insights
@VitaTechnology
@PowerPulse
@heavy_reading
@EmbeddedDev
@ConnSupplier
@LinleyGroup
@Updates2TDF
@Chip_Design
@EmbeddedInsight
Number of days
between tweets
45.1
30.4
29.8
28.6
13.6
7.4
7.0
6.9
5.3
Battery Power Mag
@BatteryPowerMag
5.2
Embedded Developer
Table 10 B2B electronics publications that have tweeted least frequently
5
Publications
Table 9 shows those North
American electronics publications
that have tweeted most
frequently while Table 10 shows
those publications that have
tweeted least frequently.
Tweeting regularly forms an
important part of building up
a company’s internet presence,
simply by putting themselves ‘out
there’ and becoming noticed
within the community they
wish to address. It gives the
impression that they are dynamic
and active, with interesting
contributions to make.
However, due to the nature of
these publications as mediums
for breaking news, tweeting
regularly is essential. Tweeting
infrequently could suggest that a
publication is not up-to-date with
latest developements.
So, frequent tweeting creates the
right foundations to exploit when
trying to gain client coverage
through a publication’s Twitter
output. The accounts which do
this successfully are more likely
to be taken seriously, with a
follower community which will
listen to and take on board their
message.
Yet, frequency of tweets is
open to interpretation. It is
equally possible that accounts
which tweet very regularly can
make the follower community
‘switch off’ by clogging up their
timelines. Here, judgement is key
to getting the most out of Twitter:
it is worth keeping an eye on
the accounts highlighted in this
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7. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
section to gauge which one’s
activity is most suitable for the
way you intend to use Twitter.
Journalists
The table below (Table 11)
shows the top 10 journalists who
have tweeted most frequently.
These accounts generally have a
higher number of hours between
tweets in comparison with the top
10 publications’ accounts. This may
be because publications’ accounts
are often used for breaking news,
which is why they tweet more
frequently.
Equally, it is important to
consider that some companies
may have dedicated teams
to monitor and use their
publication’s Twitter account to
maintain its internet presence,
whereas journalists’ accounts
would not be similarly handled.
Journalist
Publication
Twitter handle
Anshel Sag
Richard K. Wallace
Mike Demler
Eric Wesoff
BSN
TheNextSiliconValley.com
The Linley Group
Greentech Media
@anshelsag
@TheNextSiValley
@MikeDemler
@ewesoff
2.27
4.52
6.03
7.27
Sarah Reedy
Gabriel Brown
Don Dingee
Clive (Max) Maxfield
Michael Kanellos
Light Reading
Heavy Reading
L2myowndevices.com
EE Times
Greentech Media
@SReedy
@Gabeuk
@L2myowndevices
@MaxMaxfield
@mikekanellos
8.56
8.85
9.33
12.68
15.81
Stephen Law
EP&T Magazine
@EPTmagazine
15.97
Average hours
between tweets
Table 11 North American journalists working in the electronics sector that have tweeted most frequently
Journalist
Publication
Twitter handle
Jim Harrison
Jim Montague
Mark LaPedus
Berge Ayvazian
Electronics Products
CCD & IN
EE Times
Heavy Reading
@JHarris99
@jamesmontague
@Mlapedus
@ayvaz
846.5
562.1
209.8
157.2
Barbara Jorgensen
Amy Norcross
Kristin Lewotsky
Richard Comerford
Graham Finnie
Electronic Buyers News
EDN
EE Times
Electronic Products
Heavy Reading
@BarbJorgensen
@aejn12
@KristinLewotsky
@rcomerford
@heavygraham
106.2
83.3
60.3
52.7
47.4
Warren Webb
ECD
@warrenwebb
35.8
Average days
between Tweet
Table 12 Journalists in B2B electronics publications that have tweeted least frequently
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8. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
Table 12 (on the previous page)
shows the 10 journalists in the
electronics media that have
tweeted least frequently.
SUMMARY
Conclusion
Activity Levels
Overall, the publications’
accounts generally seem to
be better established than the
journalists’ accounts – having
higher numbers of followers,
higher social authority scores,
and more regularly tweets.
Publications – highest activity
levels around the start of the day
Journalists – activity spread out
more evenly across the day
Social Authority
Publications – highest score of 63.
Range of 19 between the top 5.
Journalists – highest score of 46.
Range of 14 between the top 5.
Generally, social authority is not
hugely relevant to this sector.
Scores may well be low because
of their weighting on how much
an account’s content is retweeted
– therefore, it seems that social
authority reveals more about the
audience’s tendencies, rather than
reflecting an account’s influence.
Visibility
Publications – highest number of
followers: 35, 518. Range of 29,
287 between top 10.
Journalists – highest number of
followers: 4025. Range of 2219
between top 10.
Recency of last tweet
Publications – significant majority
had tweeted within the past
24 hours.
Journalists – a smaller proportion
had tweeted within the past
24 hours.
It is possible that publications’
accounts tweet more regularly
because they break news via
Twitter and because dedicated
teams look after the accounts,
whereas this is not the case with
journalists’ accounts.
7
On the basis of our evidence,
we suggest that in terms of
diffusing content, it is better to
target publications’ accounts to
maximise the audience who will
be seeing it.
Journalist accounts, however,
should not be disregarded.
They generally have less
followers than publications,
and seem to tweet less
regularly: this means their
timelines will be less clogged,
which suggests they are more
likely to respond to engagement
such as @mentions.
So, these accounts are a good
platform for building rapport.
Using this knowledge, along
with the other information
contained in this report, will
be an invaluable way to tailor
your marketing strategy to the
North American B2B electronics
media.
Contact the author
Contact Jon Barrett on:
+44 (0) 1225 470000
Email him at:
jon.barrett@publitek.com
Visit www.publitek.com
for more information
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9. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
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