TweetReach: Nominated for Most Vapid Golden Globes Infographic

Spewing data does not make an infographic.

Am I just cranky, or is this infographic especially meaningless?TweetReach’s “A night out with TweetReach and the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards” is an infographic full of numbers about Twitter activity during the recent awards event, but amazingly short on analysis and insight.

I am a big fan of Zooey Deschanel (have you seen the fabulous video of her doing “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” with Joseph Gordon-Levitt?) and a big, big fan of Ricky Gervais (I much prefer the original “Office” to the American version), but where and how does this thing tell me anything except that Zooey got retweeted 5,082 times and Ricky got “27,1190 mentions, 3,226 retweets, and 5,857,476 impressions.”

The “Real-time Response Chart” looks cool, but what does it do besides spew data?

I watched part of the Golden Globes on TV, and I wonder about how important this event really is (compared to the Oscars, for instance) and about Mr. Gervais’ hosting performance (compared to his hosting of the event last year and the year before), and about whether or not Jody Foster got angry at that joke about her “Beaver.” But this infographic has got nothing to say about these or most any other question about the event. Except who posted the most retweeted tweets. What does that mean?

OK, so maybe the Golden Globes is just eye candy to show off movies and stars. Is that an excuse for a similarly vapid and shallow infographic?

On the other hand, social media is nothing if not vapid and shallow. At least in the aggregate. Witness another infographic that puts things into slighly better perspective: “You Are What You Tweet,” from frugaldad.com. There you will find that Beyonce is the most important person of the year (according to Twitter), Justin Bieber is the person of the year (according to Facebook) and Charlie Sheen is the most important person of the year (according to Facebook).

--WTP

###

--Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's book “Measure What Matters.” He is also editor of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” by Beth Kanter and Katie Paine, which will be published this year by Wiley. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.