Chattanooga mayor Andy Berke was named among the mayoral Twitter elite after Tuesday's report by Development Counsellors International (DCI) ranked Berke ninth in DCI's "25 Mayors Who Have Mastered Twitter" report.
The study looks at the use of Twitter by mayors from the 250 largest U.S. cities. Twitter is in its 10th year of existence and has developed into a highly effective, low-cost communications tool, especially in national and local elections. Elected officials have embraced the site as a means of connecting with constituents.
"Twitter has emerged as a powerful tool for mayors to interact with citizens on a daily basis and actively listen to views outside of their inner circle," Andy Levine, president and chief creative officer, DCI said. "Our aim was to highlight the 'jedi masters' of this important communications tool."
The firm searched for and evaluated the activity of Twitter accounts from the mayors of the largest 250 cities in the U.S. DCI evaluated the activity over a 60-day period from January 1 through February 29. Each mayor's activity was scored based on five categories of weighted importance:
Audience (30%) - Number of Twitter followers divided by the city's population.
Frequency (20%) - Average daily number of tweets communicated by each mayor.
Responsiveness (20%) - Average daily number of reply tweets communicated by each mayor.
Engagement (20%) - Average percentage of retweets/likes by each mayor's followers.
Influence (10%) - Number of other mayors (from the 250 largest U.S. cities) that follow a mayor's Twitter account.