March 31, 2016
Source/Twitter
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney's @PhillyMayor account has hit the ground running since it launched in January 2016.
Life in the public eye comes with plenty of risk and reward for politicians in the age of social media saturation. Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner's career was damaged by an oversight on Twitter, while 2016 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump rides his @realDonaldTrump handle to exclamatory paydirt.
In Philadelphia, meanwhile, freshman Mayor Jim Kenney sits respectably at No. 39 among U.S. mayors on Twitter, according to a new report from Development Counsellors International, a New York marketing and research firm.
The study, "The Tweet Elite: 25 Mayors Who Have Mastered Twitter," first analyzed the accounts of 250 mayors from America's largest cities and then eliminated all those who had less than 1,000 Twitter followers. With just 110 mayors left in contention, DCI looked at the Twitter activity of each mayor between Jan. 1 and Feb. 29, 2016.
To determine how each of the mayors stacked up, the study weighed five factors. Audience (30 percent) divided a mayor's Twitter followers by the city's population. Frequency (20 percent) looked at the average number of daily tweets by each mayor. Responsiveness (20 percent) tallied the average daily number of reply tweets. Engagement (20 percent) covered the average retweets and likes a mayor earned on each tweet as a percentage of followers. Finally, influence (10 percent) factored in the number of mayors among the original 250 who followed their peers.
Kenney was evaluated based on the @PhillyMayor account he created upon taking office, which is only a few months ago, so he deserves some credit for his 8,400 followers. His personal account, @JimFKenney, has more than 9,000 followers and would likely have given him a boost in the rankings if that were used as the basis of the study.
Still, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Kenney scored in the top 10 for Engagement (3) and Frequency (8) and in the top 20 for Responsiveness (16).
Since delivering his first budget address, Kenney has ramped up social media efforts behind his key policy initiatives, from the sugary drinks tax to parks and rec renovations and universal pre-K.
"Philadelphia's children & neighborhoods are well worth it" -@PhillyInquirer endorses sugary drink tax: https://t.co/QpqWr2SXWr #FairFuture
— Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) March 20, 2016
Visiting Vare Rec Center with @CouncilmanKJ. Our children deserve safe, clean rec centers and parks. #RebuildPHL pic.twitter.com/2qwG1BG1w5
— Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) March 31, 2016
Watch a recap of my visit to quality pre-K, Chinatown Learning Center, then join #PHL4preK: https://t.co/LTptYpIsHi pic.twitter.com/2nsNj9ljoF
— Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) March 29, 2016
Honoring local Veterans who served in the Vietnam War. Thank you for your service. #PhillyVietnamVets pic.twitter.com/p60DC1O9DD
— Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) March 29, 2016
The top five mayors across all five categories are as follows.
1. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (@MayorSRB) - Baltimore
2. Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) - Washington, D.C.
3. William Peduto (@BillPeduto) - Pittsburgh
4. Jennifer Roberts (@CLTMayor) - Charlotte
5. Stephen K. Benjamin (@SteveBenjaminSC) - Columbia, S.C.
Check out the full findings from the study here.
