Batting averages are nothing new to those who following cricket or baseball.

They tell us just how good a batsman is at scoring runs per innings or how often a batter hits the ball.

But I can’t help wonder if it’s time we had the baseball equivalent of a batting average for Twitter. You know? So we can see just who are the really good Twitter users.

Often we simply look to see who has the most followers or who has tweeted the most but that doesn’t necessarily tell you the full story. For instance, if someone is a relative newbie to Twitter, they may have a low tweet count but they may have scored quite a few followers through quality tweets. Someone else may have been tweeting for years and has a high tweet count but a relatively low number of followers.

So that’s where the Twitter Batting Average (TBA) should help clean this up.

Basically, it follows a baseball-like formula:

Twitter Batting Average = Number of Followers / Number of Tweets

The idea is that those Twitter users with a high TBA are more likely to deliver quality tweets worth reading than those with a lower TBA.

Removing spammers from the list

To ensure the TBA is actually a worthwhile measure, something has to be done about spammers. Although annoying, it should not be surprising to know that spammers have hit Twitter. You can usually tell a spammer by their random-letter username, high following count and very, very low tweet count. That means that spammers could easily climb up the TBA ladder if allowed.

To get around this, you should be required to have at least a tweet count of 10 before you make it onto a TBA list. That way, you’ll get rid of most of the spammers (who rarely reach 10 tweets) without unduly affecting Twitter newbies (who should reach 10 tweets in reasonably quick time).

So, who has the highest Twitter Batting Average?

The average Twitter user will have a TBA of below one – it’s very unlikely an average user will gain one follower for every tweet they publish. But it should be no surprise that high-profile celebrities will be far more likely to have a high TBA – and a very high one at that. Of cource, it’s up to you to decide whether their tweets are worthy of that TBA… :).

For what it’s worth, my TBA is currently about 0.1 – that wouldn’t get me a contract with a B-grade ‘ball team! Oh, well…

Twitter has really exploded in popularity in recent times and there are now a surprising number of high-profile Tweeters but after some research, I wasn’t surprised that the highest TBA I could find actually belonged to US President Barack Obama with a TBA of 1098.

Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has a TBA of 91.76 while his opposite number, Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull has a TBA of just 14.1.

Entertainment celebs will likely have a TBA of above 100 for example, actor Ewan McGregor has a very healthy TBA of 341.

Of course, there are plenty of “fake” celebrity Twitter users as well but again, these typically have a very low tweet count so using the “spammer’s law” should remove these from the TBA as well.

The idea of a “battery average” metric might seem like a silly waste of time but don’t bet on it – metrics like a TBA could be used to target advertisers or politicians looking for outspoken and street-respected tweeters. Twitter delivers a world of data via its Twitter API and you can be certain that while some (including me) will be using the API to create Twitter clients, marketing companies will be using the same data to work out marketing strategies. Bank on it.

So. Dumb idea? Stroke of brilliance? You decide.

Either way, the TBA will give you an idea of either how popular or how eloquent a Twetter is.

Calculate your Twitter Batting Average

Number of Followers:

Your Tweet Count:


Twitter Batting Average:

How did you go? Remember, there are a number of things that can affect a Twitter Batting Average but it’s not uncommon to have one below 1.0.
Not all of us can be celebrities…

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