Well klout scores have really hit the Twitterwaves this week with the launch of k and a frenzied obsession of seeing just how well you’re doing, offering your friends increased klout and generally developing a paranoia of influence or otherwise. I was interested to discover that I am an expert on Swansea, a city I’ve visited just twice in my life. I’m sure some of the residents of this Welsh City may think they’re better social ambassadors.

Frivolity aside, at blur Group we know that social needs a little bit more than just pushing and hoping.  And seeing how we’re doing, whether there are a few quirks along the way based on a particularly lively hashtag, can be just as much your responsibility as using a software monitoring tool.

So what are the quick checks that you can perform to see if you’re really doing as well on Twitter as you should be? Here’s ten tests you can do in less than ten minutes a day.

1) Tot up your follower counts. OK we know that size isn’t everything, but there comes a point in the life of a Twitter account when you think ‘wow’.  And that moment normally comes when, almost inexplicably you seem to be acquiring followers faster than you imagined when you put out that first ‘our company does the following’ day 1 tweet. So see how many followers you’re acquiring on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and make sure that levels are growing consistently.

2) Follower to followee. We’re not all going to be Lady Gaga, but the ratio of how many people are following you to how many people you’re following is still a major gauge of how interesting or otherwise your twitter account is. It may pander to the ego, but it does the job of showing that you’ve progressed beyond the ‘please follow me’ stage.

3) Retweets and mentions. There’s a lot of ‘personal pride’ on Twitter. Most of the influence scores look very heavily at how often you’re mentioned and retweeted and this is the easiest thing to monitor. But don’t think too much about just seeing a retweet. Look at what gets retweeted or what gets replies – then think of doing more of the same. Social media will always have the touch of the serendipitous so other than being Gaga or Fry you can’t guarantee what will hit the collective spot – but try to spot the pattern if it is there.

4)Absolute conversations. Go on – how often do you really engage? Do you consider ‘Thanks for the RT’ as a conversation? What about actually getting past two tweets with one person? If your conversation is actually one tweet each then try to up the game and up your conversational numbers. And with whom you’re conversing.

5)Conversations as percentage of your following. You had a tweet retweeted. By three people. Then you realise that those three people represent 0.001% of your total following. Not quite so good now huh? As with all these things you should look at where you are now, and where you’d like to be and make sure that your target is nearing each day. Then set another one.

6)Look who’s talking. Most twitter accounts have a core following: as above it’s normally a small percentage of your total. The devoted tweet talkers tend to be of two types – those who really do hang on your every word, and those who hope to have some of your influence and reach rub off on them. The second is a good and classic follower gain strategy, but you’ll often find they’ll use you and move on when they make their own personal targets. The first set are your lifelong fans and you need to keep them on board – but make sure that you get more like them.

7)Hashtag happenings. Have you created your own hashtag that’s not just taken off but is in regular use by others? That’s a real achievement and will almost certainly drive traffic, followers and general noise around your twitter presence. But hashtags are important to get your presence felt even if they’re – er rehashed. After all that’s part of what they’re about. So if you’re tweeting on a popular topic but not using hashtags, then you really need to smarten up. Hashtags build your following, show that this is the area on which you’re expert and generally contribute to your profile. Now we all hate the overkill hashtaggers, but count how many of your daily tweets are hashtag free and see if they’d be better off rising up those searchstrings.

8)CTA uptake. Use analytics that show who’s clicked through to the ultimate destination. Whether they’re part of your Twitter client or you integrate them with google you don’t want your tweets to lose the action point. If no-one reads beyond the tweet, then what are you really tweeting for?

9)Traction. This is really about making sure that you’re visible on Twitter, beyond your own Twitter account. First of all this means promoting your Twitter presence at all points so that people come to you and secondly it’s your presence on other people’s Twitter lists. It’s visibility beyond your own efforts that move you to the higher twitterati.

9)Taxing. Are you trying too hard? As with blogging, you really shouldn’t spend too much time on your twitter accounts, particularly the routine outbound messaging. That’s what scheduling is for – if you know what you’re going to be saying you don’t need to devote 15 minutes in every hour to it. Your conversations are different – that’s what you want to dedicate your time to. So if you’re spending more of your Twitter hours putting out messages rather than engaging you’re on the wrong track

10)Tremendous. Do you actually think that you’ve done a good job on Twitter today? Are you really pleased with your presence? Are you seeing results from what you’re doing? Because, whatever any of the official monitoring tools will tell you, that’s what really counts. If your brand is performing better than before, if you’re seeing real results then that’s the best testimony you can have.

Still not sure how to bring Twitter into your business? Not sure if you need to or if there’s something else you should be doing with your marketing spend? Why not submit a brief now?