Chattanooga Mayor named one of "Top 25 mayors who have mastered Twitter"

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A marketing firm has ranked Chattanooga Mayor Berke among "The Tweet Elite," a list of 25 mayors who have mastered Twitter.

The study by Development Counsellors International (DCI) looked at the use of Twitter by mayors from the 250 largest U.S. cities.

DCI says since launching in 2006, Twitter has developed into a highly-effective, low-cost communications tool in national and local elections. Elected officials have also embraced the microblogging site as a means of connecting directly with the public on a daily basis.

"Twitter has emerged as a powerful tool for mayors to interact with citizens on a daily basis and actively listen to views outside of their inner circle," said Andy Levine, president and chief creative officer, DCI. "Our aim was to highlight the 'jedi masters' of this important communications tool."

Mayor Berke has been on Twitter since August of 2008, when he was a state senator.

Here's his latest tweet at the time this story was posted:

DCI's research began by searching the Twitter accounts of mayors for the 250 largest cities in the U.S. The firm evaluated their Twitter activity over a 60-day period from January 1-February 29, 2016. Each mayor's activity was scored based on five categories of weighted importance:

• Audience (30%)Number of Twitter followers divided by the city's population.
• Frequency (20%)Average daily number of tweets communicated by each mayor.
• Responsiveness (20%)Average daily number of reply tweets communicated by each mayor.
• Engagement (20%)Average percentage of retweets/likes by each mayor's followers.
• Influence (10%)Number of other mayors (from the 250 largest U.S. cities) that follow a mayor's Twitter account.

The report also measures the "top five" mayors in each of the individual ranking components: Audience, Frequency, Responsiveness, Engagement and Influence.

Here's the full report: