How Twitter can teach you about Sandwiches

Note: This is the first post in my 30-day challenge to write about random topics using the Portent Content Idea Generator.  The goal is that through this exercise I should become more efficient at learning/researching different topics and get back in the swing of writing regularly. With that said, on to today’s topic…

I’ll admit that I opted to start today in a hopeful note.  Delving into this brave new world of randomized topics, I figured I’d serve myself up a softball and start with a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: sandwiches.

A good sandwich is like a good friend, and then some.

• Quickly accessible
• Can take them nearly anywhere
• As simple or as complex as you want them to be
• They don’t tend to ask you to change who you are or improve yourself
• They just really “get” you

3 1/2 sandwiches? Yup, that means 1/2 didn’t even last long enough to photo.

These are facts I already had when I started the day, so let’s see what Twitter could teach me.

Sandwiches > Tweetdeck

To set out on this, I thought I’d use Tweetdeck to set-up a query for “sandwiches” and see what came up.  I figured I’d let it run for a while, then check back towards the end of the day and see what wisdom it had gleaned, that way I could open up a select few and embed the tweets here.

Should have been a solid win, right?

Very quickly I realized, however, that the stream of incoming tweets was just too intense for this tool to work well, and I’d be scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until carpal tunnel finally claimed me a young age.

What I needed here was some kind of aggregator.

Sandwich Tweets by Hour

A quick examination of the chart below shows that, despite including all global, english-language tweets, the data set for sandwich mentions is heavily influenced by the West Coast lunch crowd.

Largely unscientific data obtained from running Archivist and letting it grab all mentions of “sandwiches” today.

So, if you’re looking to get ahead of the curve on your sandwich marketing, maybe start launching these things in that lull around 11am MST. Also, maybe send me a free sample, because sandwiches are delicious.

Life is about making difficult…sandwiches

But, Ryan, what were people actually saying about sandwiches?

Good question.  Tossing all those tweets from Archivist into a quick & dirty text analyser, it’s pretty clear that Michael Bluth rules the tweetdom:

Go ahead and put that up next to your mirror for some inspiration.

Actually, I’ve never been an Arrested Development fan, but a lot of folks on twitter are, as evidenced by the data.

Aside from showing what happens when you use a hasty analyzer, it’s pretty clear that on a random day, lots of folks are still keeping the Bluth hope alive.

Academically speaking, the type of sandwich that was most mentioned was the Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie.
What in the actual hell?!

Sandwich Influencers

The last thing I thought I’d do was use Followerwonk’s bio search to see who were considered to be influential in this tasty realm.  Boy was I surprised.  Turns out, there’s a lot of people at the top of the social authority ranks with bios that include “shut up and make me a sandwich”.

These people must be amazingly influential if they manage to get their followers to not only make a sandwich, but also deliver it to them.  I’ve been trying to get my Phoenix followers to bring me a coffee for 3+ years now, much less a sandwich.

I also spotted a couple more things here:

1. This is February, aka Febru-ANY, and Jared is nowhere near the top of the list for sandwich influencers
2. Also where’s Michael Strahan or Apollo Ono.  Are you really telling me Apollo Ono has more important things to do in a non-Olympic year?
3. 4 of the top 8 accounts somehow incorporate One Direction. Does this mean sandwich thought leaders have dropped Bieber?
4. Scrolling beyond the top 8, I see more and more One Direction references…. oh my god… could it be?

After reviewing the startling data, it’s becoming clear to me how mistaken I was.  Sandwiches aren’t meant for me.  I’m not the key sandwich demographic anymore….

Twitter taught me that sandwiches are for teeny-boppers.

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• My “rocket” sandwich