A Twitter ranking tool that gives me a good grade.

I’ve been using Twitter for almost two years now and have tweeted more than 8,000 times. I follow about 90 people and have nearly 300 followers. Twitter has become a real part of my life.

So you’d think I’d rank a little higher in most Twitter user ranking algorithms. I don’t. I usually come out slightly above average — or sometimes even below average — leaving me to wonder whether I’m somehow tweeting wrong.

One of the people I follow on Twitter, @Phillprice, tweeted his score on another ranking tool called Twitter Grader. I followed the link to get my own score. Imagine my surprise when I scored a 97 our of 100. Whoa.

So according to this one ranking tool, I’m actually doing something right. I decided to see how this is calculated. Clicking a link displayed the following information:

The Twitter Grade measures the reach and authority of a Twitter user.

It is calculated as a percentile score. A grade of 97.0 means that @mlanger scores higher than 97.0 percent of the 874375 users that have been graded.

• The number of followers you have
• The power of this network of followers
• The pace of your updates
• The completeness of your profile
• …a few others

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t have many followers, but I guess the ones I have are good ones to have. I certainly can’t argue that I tweet at a brisk pace — a simple calculation puts my tweeting rate at an average of 12 tweets per day. And my profile is complete — although I can’t imagine it being less complete.

But a more careful read of the explanation gives me more food for thought. It says that I “scored higher than 97.0 percent of the 874375 users that have been graded.” (Emphasis added.) Maybe only the insecure, low-ranking users have tried this tool. And maybe I’m one of them.

So maybe I just rank high among the bottom feeders.

New Year’s Resolution: Stop checking out the Twitter ranking tools.