As typically reserved central bankers, we’d be content to just let these milestones pass, but the truth is that it’s not really about us, after all – it’s about you, our followers. Our success is yours, so for all our success since inception and in 2019, THANK YOU! #BOJSpeaks 🧵 
2. It wouldn’t be a central bank review bank without some statistics – you know you want it! 😉😇 So here goes - the great blue whale of central bank Twitter is @bank_indonesia, with nearly 700,000 followers. However, in relation to a 264 million population, that’s barely 0.27%.
3. We closed 2019 at 5,946 followers, 0.21% relative to a 2.8 million population; not far behind. With 0.44% and 0.41% respectively, @bankofengland and @bankofcanada are better, but the central bank per capita king is @MMA_Maldives at 3% relative to a 531,000 population. Respect.
4. With a big 61% jump in January when the account went viral, we averaged a monthly follower growth rate of 11.7% for 2019. No other central bank came close. We haven’t paid Twitter a cent for advertising, so we’re proud to say that this and other results are all organic.
6. Also playing a big role in taking us viral was a certain ‘music video’ featuring a blue Mitsubishi. (Thanks, @ultramanifestor!) It was featured first on @MSNBC, and @zGuz of Yahoo Finance christening it “the most ‘fire’ central bank video in human history” also didn’t hurt!
7. The busiest central banks on Twitter are @stlouisfed, @Banxico, @bcr_sv and @BancoCentral_Ec, with 7 to 8 tweets/day, followed by @RBI with 6. The global average for central banks, though, is about 2 tweets/day.
9. Engagement is the number of times a viewer interacts with a tweet – clicks, likes, retweets, replies, etc, while the engagement rate is engagement as a percentage of views. The average engagement rate for business sectors across all Twitter is a mere 0.05 per cent.
10. In 2019 we averaged 45 engagements per follower, 195 engagements per tweet and 20 retweets, 54 likes, 5 clicks and 4 comments per day. In a context where between 0.33 and 1% is considered high, our engagement rate for 2019 was 7.43%, with average daily engagement of 1.4%.
11. A recent @OMFIF report by @DKyriakopoulou and @Pierreppo kindly mentioned us often, but focussed mostly on bigger countries. We’d love the next report to tell us who matched us in engagement in 2019, because we’re not aware that any central bank came close.
12. A 2019 @BankofFinland study shows most central banks failing a key benchmark – the number of economist followers. Most have below 50. With over 170, including a few from @IMFNews and some local, we have more than every central bank except @ecb, @bankofengland and @bis_org.
13. Among our economists followers (despite us not knowing that #econtwitter was a thing), we are very proud to count as fans two of the leading economists in the hemisphere, the Caribbean’s own @marladukharan and Jamaica’s own @PeterBlairHenry.
14. Another benchmark is the number of business journalists following the account. We are not sure how we compare here and would love to know, but we suspect it’s at least favourably. Of the business journalists following us, over 20 are local and over 110 are international.
15. Some are from @wsj, @reuters, @forbes, @YahooFinance, @FT, and @nytimes, all listed on the top 20 Twitter accounts for banking and finance. One we’re flattered to have following us, @katie_martin_FX, is listed in the top 30 Twitter feeds in global economics and finance.
16. Another following journalist is @RWhelanWSJ (seen here in Jamaica talking to the legendary Dean Fraser and @tarrusrileyja), who took the time to cover us in person for a @wsj front page story as well as discover roast breadfruit. Thanks, Robbie!!
17. Long before Robbie booked his flight, though, and long before our 2019 tweets generated 3.6 million views with an average of 2,601 views per tweet and 10,000 views per day, his @wsj colleague @Birdyword, the lad from Leeds, was already a fan. Respect!
18. For some reason (feel free to DM and tell us why), the majority of international journalists following us are from @business, which perhaps explains why we’ve received so much coverage from them. We’re grateful!
19. There are also the folks at @CentralBanking, journalists who, among other things, specialize in covering global central banks. We’re flattered that they were there for us literally from day one, and gave our Twitter account its maiden international story.
20. They’re not all economists or journalists, but all doing a great and largely selfless job to educate Jamaicans on matters of public economics and personal finance. We’re very proud to have them following us closely and of their impact in 2019! BIG UP #FinanceTwitterJA!
21. Journalists and economists aside, it’s humbling to also survive the scrutiny of so many experts in marketing, branding, communication and central bank communications. One of the latter, @jillvardy, is an industry legend, so we couldn’t be more flattered that she is a fan.
22. Especially @UrUramakrishnan, @Clonkeng, @K_M_Youssef and Olga Stankova, @IMFNews has always been supportive, but we’re still flustered that successive IMF bosses @Lagarde and @KGeorgieva BOTH saw it fit to publicly highlight our communication programme. Thank you!
23. Several of you, @dan_hinge, @RachaelKing_cb, @CB_Editor,@Antoine65642913, @DrNigelClarkeJa, @thereselmm, @MeliSMarchand, @Marladukharan and more, were there for us 'before we got famous.'😉😎Thank you! Thanks to @INVESTMENTSHULK, @_Superbrat_, and @jpodnos, for you-know-what!
24. 2019 also saw the declassification and introduction of agent Croc. O. Doyle. He thanks you sincerely for the warm reception – especially from the ladies - and promises plenty in 2020!🐊
25. We had to be crazy to come up with a concept like agent Doyle, you say? Well, they DO say one has to be a bit crazy to be creative, so on that note we are VERY pleased to close by noting that we are being monitored by the Bellevue Hospital! #headnuhgood
26. P.S. We're fully aware that we're still a Twitter baby with lots to learn, so nuff respect to our elders and sincere thanks once again to our followers and viewers!
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