The world contains a lot of statistics. I would know, I recently passed my Statistics III course and after studying for it on four different occasions, you can trust me when I say that the world of statistics is very – very – elaborate. There is a measurement for everything.
Don’t worry, in this blog I won’t bore you with all the statistical knowledge I have gained in my years as a psychology student. But I will tell you this: nowadays, the only statistics that seem to matter to the lay people is the social media statistics. How many friends do you have on Facebook? How many likes did your post or comment receive? How many followers do you have on Twitter or Instagram? How many people do you follow?
But as a new expert in the field of statistics (take this with a grain of salt, please) I have come up with some of my own social media statistics. You see, the statistic of how many likes you get on a status update is very misleading. If I would get, say, 50 likes, I would be satisfied. But if a famous person only gets 50 likes, something is wrong. For this, I have invented the “Like To Follower Ratio’. And fitting for a good statistic, it will have an abbreviation: LTFR
An example.
I have 480 friends (and in a few weeks, I will cleanse my friend list, but that is beside the point). If I post a status update and it gets 50 likes, I have an LTFR of 0,10, meaning only 10% of my friends actually like what I typed.
However, if my mother (who currently has 69 friends) would post an update and get the same amount of likes, she would have an LTFR of 0,72. Wow! What a hit. More than 70% of her friends like the status. My mom is awesome.
Of course, one should always strive for perfection = 100%. So be funny. Get those likes.
For those of you who aren’t math geniuses like myself (ahem), the calculation is:
Number of likes
Number of friends/followers.
The same can be applied to Twitter, Instagram… Everything that contains people and likes, really.
Another quote important statistic unquote is the Follower To Followee Ratio (FTFR). On social media like Instagram and Twitter, it all starts with following other people. So in the beginning you have a very small FTFR. For instance, two people (your parents, maybe?) are following you, but you start following 100 other people. So your ratio would be 0,02. But then the people that you follow will also start following you and before you know it, you will have more followers than followees. Say, you now follow 100 people and 150 people follow you. Your ratio will be 1,5.
Needless to say, only the people with ratios above 1 are cool.
We can also create a little social media statistics inception (don’t worry, it won’t be as confusing as the movie). If you post a status update, you could also create a statistic that allows you to put into ratio the amount of people who commented on your post, versus the people who liked it. Say 50 people like your post, but only ten people comment on it. You have a Comment To Like Ratio (CTLR) (not to be confused with CTRL, the powerful button on your keyboard) of 0,20. Not bad.
I know what you are all thinking, after reading this. Besides being an amazing statistician I am also slightly psychic. You’re thinking: Thank you for this epic statistics lesson that was so relevant for my life. Well let me respond to your thoughts without you having to voice them in the comments below: You’re welcome.
Sunny's Travels 