New Insight: How many of the people you follow are private

[adampash]

One-liner

How many of the people you follow are private

Full explainer

We tend to think that just because it's "social" media, everyone's saying everything to the public at large. Private users are an interesting counterpoint, and in ways, being allowed into the inner-circle of a private user is a special intimacy.

The goal: you should feel good about the trust placed in you by the private users who allow you access to their lives.

Audience for the insight

• This works for Twitter and Instagram.
• This is only relevant to users who follow private users.
• This could be a first-run insight.

  How often this insight runs

• [ ] One-time only, if it's never appeared before
• [x] First crawl only
• [ ] Daily
• [ ] Weekly
• [ ] Monthly
• [x] Yearly
• [ ] Triggered by a data event

This could run monthly, but without more context (e.g., a specific user just went private), I don't see a monthly version being that meaningful.

Headline

• "Social" doesn't always mean "public."
• Welcome to the inner circle.
• Between you and me.

  Body

First:

• %total people trust %username enough to share their private %post_names.
• %username must have done something right to earn the trust of %total private users.

Then (if baseline):

• That's [up/down] from %prev_total private users last year.

If up:

• Guess %username has an honest face.

If down:

• Why the decline? Maybe it was just time to go public.

  Criteria and logic

• Needs followeds list, filtered to private users.
• Requires > 0 private users followed.

  Included elements

• [x] Headline
• [x] Text
• [ ] Header image (image off to the left in side-by-side style insights)
• [ ] Hero image (giant image on top)
• [x] List of user(s)
• [ ] List of post(s)
• [ ] List of link(s)
• [ ] Action button
• [ ] Line chart
• [ ] Bar chart
• [ ] Other viz
• [ ] Other graphic treatment

[cdmoyer]

Hmm, I'm thinking we shouldn't include the list of users, as it appears that followers and following are both hidden for protected accounts, and twitter insights are public by default.

Do we just run this once, and then each year after that? Do we track if the number chanhed?

[adampash]

...it appears that followers and following are both hidden for protected accounts

Oh interesting. So if I follow someone who has a protected account, that person wouldn't show up in my list of followeds on twitter?

Do we just run this once, and then each year after that? Do we track if the number chanhed?

Yeah, just once a year. I'd marked as first-run, but in retrospect that probably doesn't make sense. For now, let's put in the fall. Maybe November? (Calendar is my first priority after I finish these replies!)

I think a baseline would be useful/interesting. Updating.

[adampash]

@cdmoyer Just added this to the calendar annually on Sep 30. Sound good?