Tnooz List: 50 travel companies and the Twitter follow-follower ratio debate

UK ecommerce and marketing service EConsultancy joined the likes of tech uberblogger Robert Scoble recently by unfollowing enmasse around 19,000 followers of its Twitter account.

The company says the move is primarily to clean up its Twitter feed (how can it realistically follow 19,000 people, it says), avoid the overwhelming number of spam DMs and a whole host of other reasons, listed here.

Its existing strategy to reciprocate those that followed its tweets with a follow back has been an experiment worth making but one it has chosen to end, editor-in-chief Chris Lake says.

Depending on which social media guru you listen to, Twitter is a great mouthpiece, an interaction tool with customers, a brilliant listening post or a combination of all three.

The methodology behind EConsultancy's decision to stop its followship (fellowship?) is interesting, not least because they could have potentially risked losing followers of their own.

This goes to the heart of any company's Twitter strategy - are they using it just build follower numbers (helpful, perhaps, with marketing distribution) or are they happy to communicate with a active set of people?

Using the First Tweet from 50 Travel Companies list we created in November 2009, Tnooz looked at the follow-follower ratio of each to see if there is a common thread amongst travel-related Twitter profiles.

We have include the Brand Name, Twitter Profile and Following-to-Follower ratio.

American Airlines - @AAirwaves - 1 to 13

Air France - @air_france - discontinued

Air New Zealand - @flyairnz - 1 to 1

Air Asia - @airasiadotcom - 1 to 330

British Airways - @britishairways - 1 to 11

Best Western - @thebestwestern - 1 to 7

Carnival Cruise Lines - @carnivalcruise - 1 to 103

Cathay Pacific - @cathaypacificUS - 1 to 1.2

Cheapflights UK - @cheapflights_uk - 1 to 1.6

Choice Hotels - @choicehotels - 0 to 1

DealBase - @dealbase - 1 to 1.2