To come up with our 10, we used both objective and subjective analysis.

We used social media tools Klout and Followerwonk to help us out. Both determine “social influence” by measuring factors such as:

Number of followers across social media

Number of Twitter “retweets” and “mentions”

Number of Facebook “likes” and “shares”

Number of Google Plus “+1s”

In addition to these tools, we made sure that each of our 10 was a) active on social media over the past month and b) providing the mining community with useful insight and analysis.

Because our list includes only tweeters in English, we recognize that there is a bias in favour of areas of the world in which English is the primary language.

We should also note that not all of our 10 report exclusively on the mining sector. A special kudos to the mining-specific analysts on our list!

You can follow all 10 directly on Twitter using this public list that we have created: https://twitter.com/mining/twitter-mining-top-10/members.

We also welcome you to follow our great news editors on Twitter:

@CeciliaJamasmie; @minerbiz; @michaelmccrae; @frikels; @anthonyhalley

…and of course MINING.com’s news feed: @mining

So, without further ado, here is MINING.com’s first Twitter Mining Top Ten:

10) “Hal” @gold_tracker

Precious metals analyst. Gold and silver in particular.

# of Twitter followers: 11,880

9) Institute for Energy Research @IERenergy

Non-profit foundation conducting analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of energy markets.

# of Twitter followers: 7,365

8) Ed Crooks @Ed_Crooks

US Industry and Energy Editor at the Financial Times.

# of Twitter followers: 5,511

7) Australian Mining @ozmining

Comprehensive Australian mining news.

# of Twitter followers: 8,238

6) King World News @KingWorldNews

Precious metals and global economic commentary.

# of Twitter followers: 7,660

5) Kitco News @KitcoNewsNOW

Precious metals expert analysis and spot prices.

# of Twitter followers: 16,876

4) Clive Palmer @CliveFPalmer

Australian businessman and resource investor. Owner of Mineralogy iron ore company.

# of Twitter followers: 15,005

3) The Financial Times Energy @ftenergy

The latest energy and utilities company and industry news.

# of Twitter followers: 29,309

2) The Financial Times Commodities @ftcommodities

Commodities news, market data and investor analysis.

# of Twitter followers: 10,107

1) The United States Geological Survey @USGS

Information on the health of ecosystems and environment, natural hazards, natural resources, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and core science systems.

# of Twitter followers: 292,018

Honorable mentions (we are big supporters of these three): Sprott Global Resource Investment @sprottglobal Mickey Fulp @mercenerygeo InfoMine @InfoMine

If you have any comments or questions, or you would like to suggest a company or individual for our next list, please write to us at [email protected]

Creative Commons image by Robert Scoble