Project for Excellence in Journalism | Poynter
A new study by Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reveals that several news organizations with rapidly growing Twitter followings actually sent the fewest tweets.
For example, Fox News sent only 48 tweets the week of Feb. 14-20, 2011 — among the fewest posted by the 13 news organizations studied — and its Twitter followers grew 118 percent between February and October. Huffington Post, ABC News and The New York Times were among the most prolific tweeters during the same week, and over the next nine months they had the smallest growth in Twitter followers. Here’s a chart that shows the numbers.
| News organization | # of tweets sent | % growth in followers |
| Fox News | 48 | 118 |
| The Washington Post | 664 | 100 |
| MSNBC | 33 | 86 |
| The Wall Street Journal | 104 | 71 |
| CNN | 90 | 71 |
| Daily Caller | 144 | 67 |
| USA Today | 205 | 66 |
| NPR | 232 | 64 |
| Toledo Blade | 184 | 51 |
| The Arizona Republic | 143 | 50 |
| The Huffington Post | 415 | 49 |
| The New York Times | 391 | 30 |
| ABC News | 316 | 18 |
The average number of tweets sent from a news org’s main account was 228. The top seven sites in follower growth all sent fewer than the average number of tweets, with one exception: The Washington Post sent out the most tweets during the period studied and saw its Twitter following grow 100 percent over the last nine months. Among the bottom six with the smallest growth in Twitter followers, all but two news orgs sent more than the average number of tweets.
The number of tweets sent is not the only factor affecting whether people follow or unfollow a Twitter account; effective engagement is a factor as well. As Jeff Sonderman reports, the Pew study found that Fox News used Twitter for engagement more than the other news organizations studied. It also had the largest growth in Twitter followings.
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