Family Online Safety Institute #fosi2010 Reaches Over Half a Million People via Twitter

The Family Online Safety Institute's 4th Annual FOSI Conference was not only the largest ever according to FOSI Chair Stephen Balkam, it was also the most social media savvy based on the number of people 'tweeting' during the conference using the #fosi2010 hashtag on Twitter. When I talked with Stephen during the first day of FOSI, he mentioned that while last year only a handful of audience members raised their hands when he asked who was tweeting about FOSI, this year nearly half the audience raised their hands. Not surprising, given Twitter's explosive growth in the last two years — it now boasts over 160 million users, up from just three million in 2008.

While the FOSI Conference enjoyed a few hundred attendees including Internet Industry leaders, educators, legislators, law enforcement, Internet safety advocates, teachers, and technologists - FOSI's total *potential reach* through Twitter impressions alone was over half-a-million people online! According to TweetReach, a web-based Twitter analysis tool, over 575,394 people were exposed to the #fosi2010 hashtag from the 1,485 tweets sent by conference attendees using Twitter, and then re-tweeted (RT'd) via their own Twitter followers from across the Web.

The power of technology as a force of good for raising awareness around issues of online safety and family privacy is evident in the conference's use of Twitter. Imagine this: in just two short days of tweeting by a small group of highly engaged attendees and their followers (267 Twitter people to be exact), over half a million people were exposed to the important research findings, shared learnings and calls-to-action being exchanged in person at the FOSI Conference, but without actually having to be there in person.

Here's a Depiction of the FOSI Conference's Reach and Exposure on Twitter:

Here's a brief explanation of how reach and exposure are calculated by TweetReach:

Note that nearly three-hundred and thirty-thousand unique people across Twitter were exposed to between four to seven tweets total, which could mean that the most active Twitter users promoting #fosi2010 had vast combined reach.

Top FOSI Twitter People by Impressions Contributed
Over 267 people total tweeted about FOSI using the #fosi2010 hashtag, with the top 10 influencers by Twitter impressions contributed below:
delbius of Twitter's Trust & Safety Team
SafetyWeb safety monitoring tool for parents
PrivacyCamp privacy conferences
denisehterry Chief SafetyMom of SafetyWeb
techsavvymama the Mama behind @BitMoms
apombalivre artist with over 40k followers
marianmerritt Internet Safety Advocate
Yahoo
WebWiseKids
shaundakin Privacy guru
Safer_Online Microsoft's official Safety account

You can download the entire FOSI Twitter Transcript for 2010 here to read the exciting tweets and notes online, as well as see the complete list of 267 Twitter contributors and their Twitter profile links.

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