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Buffer vs. SEMrush: The Great Twitter Chat Battle

Every Wednesday the marketing industry sharpens its tweets and thoughts, and joins the great battle of Twitter Chats: SEMrush Chat vs. Buffer Chat. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s kind of the Apple vs. Google, Federer vs. Djokovic, Friends vs Seinfeld scale of a battle – but for online marketing twitter chats. The SEMrush […]

Yuval Maoz
September 22, 2015

Every Wednesday the marketing industry sharpens its tweets and thoughts, and joins the great battle of Twitter Chats: SEMrush Chat vs. Buffer Chat.

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s kind of the Apple vs. Google, Federer vs. Djokovic, Friends vs Seinfeld scale of a battle – but for online marketing twitter chats.

The SEMrush Chat (8 am PST; #SEMrushchat) is a managed by SEMrush, which offers a suite for SEO, PPC and other online marketing needs. They recap every session with an interesting blog post. Check it out here.

Immediately after that chat is over, the Buffer Chat starts (9 am PST; #Bufferchat). Topics here usually evolve around social media and digital marketing, and from time to time is spiced up with topics like productivity or personal improvement. Check out their neat recap page for the chat session. 

Wait, what is a Twitter Chat?

Twitter chats are a live Twitter event with a dedicated hashtag, where anyone can participate in discussions around an interesting topic. There are such chats on just about every topic you can think of, like vegan food or even scary books.

The best way to follow and participate in a Twitter Chat is with a dedicated web app. Two of our favourites are TweetChat and tchat.io. These let you stay focused on crafting your tweets and help you stay on top of the hashtag so you can take part in the conversation.

Marketing chats specifically are crowded with people. First-time attendees might feel overwhelmed by the speed of tweets. The event’s organizers prepare 6-7 questions as a basis for discussion during the one hour chat, and people’s thoughts and opinions on these questions flood the room and make it a cheery mingling event.

Two leading chats focused on digital marketing are those of SEMrush and Buffer. We’ve set monitors after the chats’ hashtags to see what are the real differences between the two and who is winning this chat-battle. Here’s what we’ve found:

Who has more participants?

Both chats are held on Wednesday approximately on the same time. That explains the resemblance of peaks during the month. Their hashtag mentions are tight and Buffer wins here by points – 21k vs. 19.2k for 8 chats sessions:

mentions2

Which participants are more influential?

The real story hides in the impressions differences:

impressions2

 Now that’s a different ball game. The impressions show the amplification potential of the conversations. It aggregates the numbers of followers of the users that participated in these conversations. As you can see, Buffer’s crowd is hitting a home run and the exposure here is far greater.
influence3

SEMrush’s dominant user is young male (18-24 y/o), that is interested in SEO and marketing.

Buffer’s is different. The dominant user is a women (25-34 y/o), that is more into social media, marketing and business.

interests3

If the difference in amplification lies in the power users, who are the ones who move the needle on every chat?

BufferChat Top 5 Users:

  1. Elivan Souza – 107 mentions, Top 10% influencer, Super Friendly
  2. Nicolina Wroblewski  – 159 mentions, Top 5% influencer, Social Media Expert
  3. Ross Quintana – 29 mentions, Top 5% influencer, Social Media Expert
  4. Christopher Thames – 240 mentions, Top 10% influencer, Tech Expert
  5. Aaron Lee – 5 mentions, Top 1% influencer, Social Media Expert

SEMrush Chat Top 5 Users:

  1. Bill Slawski – 140 mentions, Top 5% influencer, Super Friendly, SEO Expert
  2. Sam Hurley – 55 Mentions, Top 5% influencer
  3. Brian Honigman – 100 Mentions, Top 10% influencer, Marketing expert, Super Friendly
  4. Gina Schreck – 26 Mentions, Top 5% influencer, Super Friendly
  5. Dawn Anderson – 132 Mentions – SEO Expert, Super Friendly

Conclusion

It is common to hear SEMRush attendees say they had a great time and are now rushing to BufferChat. But our in-depth analysis of the two chats revealed the differences of the two audiences, which are clearly not the same.

Both chats host quality Twitter users, but as we saw in the data, the similar quantity of users doesn’t tell the whole story.

After we compared the two chats for about 2 months, we saw the interests and demographics differences, along with their power and amplification potential. 

SEMrush attracts SEO experts and rules this industry in the chat battle. Buffer on the other hand has more influential users and rocks the marketing industry in the battle between the two.

Bottom line:

  • Participants – Tie.
  • Reach – Buffer.
  • Targeting – SEMrush.

For more social media insights: #bufferChat, @buffer, #SEMrush, @semrush

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