During the process of collecting Twitter metrics on the candidates, I started adding in comparisons of several voter-oriented online groups. It’s intriguing to see which folks put a lot of effort into tweeting, despite having relatively small numbers of followers. That’s why the traction metric is useful. Going for volume without enough traction risks wheel spinning.
| Organization | Handle | Followers | Tweets | Volume | Traction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NationalPopularVote | @NatlPopularVote | 57 | 35 | 0 | 1.63 |
| ReThink Democracy | @ReThinkDemocrcy | 902 | 5710 | 5 | 0.16 |
| Votenet | @votenet | 1081 | 524 | 1 | 2.06 |
| Votetocracy | @votetocracy | 1143 | 37300 | 43 | 0.03 |
| DemocracyLab | @DemocracyLab | 1339 | 144 | 0 | 9.30 |
| Vote411 | @VOTE411 | 1815 | 4919 | 9 | 0.37 |
| Intellitics | @intellitics | 1893 | 4122 | 8 | 0.46 |
| iCitizen | @iCitizen | 2274 | 7271 | 17 | 0.31 |
| WhyTuesday | @WhyTuesday | 3424 | 7264 | 25 | 0.47 |
| Fairvote | @fairvote | 3672 | 7647 | 28 | 0.48 |
| VoteSmart | @VoteSmart | 4820 | 4301 | 21 | 1.12 |
| The GovLab | @TheGovLab | 6620 | 1859 | 12 | 3.56 |
| League of Women Voters | @LWV | 9304 | 17000 | 158 | 0.55 |
| CrowdPac | @Crowdpac | 9464 | 1233 | 12 | 7.68 |
| Nat. Inst. on Civic Discourse | @NICDInstitute | 9498 | 2310 | 22 | 4.11 |
| Center for Civic Media | @civicMIT | 10200 | 6146 | 63 | 1.66 |
| WolfPAC | @WolfPAChq | 13400 | 4280 | 57 | 3.13 |
| Impact Democracy | @ImpactDemocracy | 14200 | 8177 | 116 | 1.74 |
| Citizens United | @Citizens_United | 14300 | 9677 | 138 | 1.48 |
| OpenCongress | @OpenCongress | 15400 | 3737 | 58 | 4.12 |
| Common Cause | @CommonCause | 18300 | 13300 | 243 | 1.38 |
| New America Foundation | @NewAmerica | 21800 | 17000 | 371 | 1.28 |
| Ballotpedia | @ballotpedia | 22000 | 12100 | 266 | 1.82 |
| Peterson Foundation | @pgpfoundation | 24100 | 1517 | 37 | 15.89 |
| National Urban League | @NatUrbanLeague | 37100 | 8880 | 329 | 4.18 |
| American Enterprise Institute | @AEI | 43900 | 31200 | 1370 | 1.41 |
| Center for American Progress | @amprog | 48400 | 15300 | 741 | 3.16 |
| FactCheck.org | @factcheckdotorg | 68800 | 3818 | 263 | 18.02 |
| NAACP | @NAACP | 93400 | 11400 | 1065 | 8.19 |
| No Labels | @NoLabelsOrg | 129000 | 12300 | 1587 | 10.49 |
| Moveon | @MoveOn | 132000 | 14200 | 1874 | 9.30 |
| NRA News | @nranews | 145000 | 22700 | 3292 | 6.39 |
| National Rifle Association | @NRA | 266000 | 6265 | 1666 | 42.46 |
| RNC | @GOP | 333000 | 21000 | 6993 | 15.86 |
| Lawrence Lessig | @lessig | 334000 | 8741 | 2919 | 38.21 |
| DNC | @TheDemocrats | 364000 | 14000 | 5096 | 26.00 |
| Heritage Foundation | @Heritage | 486000 | 46400 | 22550 | 10.47 |
| Greenpeace | @Greenpeace | 1290000 | 24200 | 31218 | 53.31 |
Selected Public Interest Organizations, March 2013
Volume = (Followers * Tweets) / 1,000,000.Traction = Followers / Tweets.