The Social Media space for Economists on Twitter reveals an interesting Bubble around Paul Krugman. (Please note: There is an important – and amusing – update at the bottom of this posting.)

1- Many followers
Among the top 20 economists on Twitter, it appears that Paul Krugman is the most important, by rank of followers.

2- Tweets infrequently
When you look more closely, Krugman’s account really only Tweets his columns.

3- Follows few others
His account is hardly following anyone.

4- Almost never engages in conversation
Krugman has almost no conversations with those whom he is following

5- Very few people retweet
Perhaps because of the infrequency and predictable nature of his Tweets (always about his column), Krugman gets very few re-Tweets.

5- The Krugman Bubble
If you add up the number of people who read the Tweets and re-Tweets of the top economists, it turns out that Krugman is NOT the top economist on Twitter. In fact, measured by reach, he was the 5th largest.

Please note: This data is a couple months old, so may not present a current picture of Twittering economists.

I don’t think Krugman needs to worry very much. He does have a column in The New  York Times that is read by more than a few people. The main point of this exercise is to show that just looking at raw numbers of followers can be misleading with Twitter.

UPDATE: Krugman recently wrote in his blog that someone had stolen his Twitter identity. That would explain why someone who enjoys interacting so much in one Social Media (his blog) did nothing on his Twitter account. It is also interesting to see how big a simple repeater account of a well-known person can grow in Twitter.