There are some blog posts that are so constantly relevant that they come back to you time and again.   Chris Brogan’s idea of a Twitter audit* – basically, writing yourself an end of term report card for the quality of your Twitter account – is one of those, so we’re going to share the post and a few thoughts on it here.

Review your Tweets

How often do you look back at your output on Twitter? Chris suggests that a periodic review of your sent tweets will give you a new perspective on how you’re actually using Twitter, and we couldn’t agree more.

Here’s how he suggests you start:

1.  Look at your last 20 tweets. How many were @ replies? How many were retweets of other people’s work?
2. In your last 20 tweets, how many promote your own work versus pointing towards others’ ideas?
3. Do you have at least one ongoing Twitter search going? (use http://search.twitter.com to set one up.
4. Are the tweets you hope will be retweeted under 120 characters so people can retweet them?
5. Of the people you follow, how many are “influential” in some way, how many are potentially good for referrals, how many are just celebrities?
6. How often are you tweeting? Is less more? Is more more? Are you burying your good stuff?
7. How are you feeding Twitter? What are you giving your audience to consume? Do you share interesting articles? Do you point out your lunch du jour? What’s the plan?
8. Are you autotweeting your post titles? Is that bringing you lots of response?
9. Have you checked the click-through stats on your short links? For instance, if you use bit.ly, take the URL of anything you’ve posted, copy it to a browser bar, and add a +, like this: “http://bit.ly/iOGhJ2+” , and you’ll see the stats. How are you doing?
10. How many folks are you gaining a day? Not that this matters greatly, but it sometimes gives you a sense of whether someone’s into what you’re saying.

We’d also add to that, perhaps look at the variety of your @replies – do you just constantly chat with a handful of online “best mates” or are you mixing it up a bit?

Audit your competitors – and your potential suppliers!

This “Twitter Audit” is a really useful tool to have in your analytical kit bag. And not just for your own tweets, either – asking the same questions about a competitor who’s got a strong Twitter following can help you see the source of their success.

Likewise if you’re outsourcing to an agency, you need to check the same aspects of what they’re doing on your behalf.  If you’re thinking of paying a consultant or trainer to work with you, absolutely do the audit on their account too before you commit. There are far too many agencies and “marketing professionals” out there whose Twitter account was set up last month, has been dormant for weeks, or just spews out a constant stream of automated links or self promotion. Check out whether they’re walking the talk!

Now, try your own Twitter audit. Any surprises?

*the original article can be found here: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/take-a-twitter-audit/ . If you can figure out what’s the pigeon’s doing there, even better.