BlueRank

BlueRank is our system for identifying the most active and influential progressives and Democrats on Twitter. Each account in our database is assigned a BlueRank that shows their rank relative to all of the other accounts. For example, the top 1% of accounts are given a BlueRank of 100. Those who are about average in influence are given a rank of 50. So the higher the BlueRank, the more influential and active the account.

Suggested follows on UniteBlue are listed from highest to lowest BlueRank, and their BlueRank value is displayed in a blue box on the lower left corner of their avatar. There are currently tens of thousands of Twitter accounts in our database, so all of the accounts you see on the first few follow pages will have a BlueRank of 100. As you move from page to page, you will gradually see the BlueRank grow lower.

You can learn more about the individual values making up each user's BlueRank by moving the cursor over the user's display. A box will pop up on the right showing average values for 4 major elements that we measure with matching color icons for each. A green circle means that the account is in the top 20% for this value, and red is used for the bottom 20%. Values in between are represented by a range of colors from green through yellow to red.

Here are the major elements of the BlueRank and their individual measurements:

Democratic activity: how many Democratic incumbents the user follows and how often they retweet Democratic incumbents; the number of progressive words and hashtags included in the user's account bio; the relative number ofprogressive hashtags used in tweets versus conservative hashtags.

Engagement level: how often the user retweets, follows, and @mentions others.

General influence: how often the user is retweeted, followed, and listed.

General activity: the total number of tweets sent by this account since it was created, and the average number of tweets per day.