Twitter. It’s an understatement to say it’s everywhere. Looking for a sure way to tell if something’s quickly becoming main stream? Watch the news. With commentators on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News mentioning Twitter on an hourly basis, you can be certain it’s quickly becoming part of our zeitgeist. Why, some shows (Rick Sanchez) are entirely built around the idea of quick, social media for information sharing. Twitter’s also a powerful marketing tool and is obviously a way to build or mar your brand image. How you share, what you share and how often you share can play an important role in social media marketing strategies.

How do you measure the value of your tweets? How can you determine the impact of your twitter posts? One word: Twitalyzer.

With this really cool tool, you can evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and get reports on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity and clout. Do people read what you tweet? And if they read, do they care? How do you measure how many people click the links you post on twitter? Do you consistently gain new followers? Do you comment on other posts and in group discussions?

I was excited to try the program, so, of course, I analyzed my own screen name, @sarakfraser. Talk about damaging to the ego. The results? Nearly 0% for all categories. In a nutshell, I don’t post enough. What I do post is not useful. I’m dreadfully ungenerous.

I checked out the most influential users. Number one is @guykawasaki, a manager of an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. I’m now one of his 110,141 followers. His posts are a mixed-bag, from financial advice to information about the coral reefs. I figure with a little persistence and a lot of luck, maybe I can bump my numbers to, oh, 3%.

Side note: for a great read, check out the article, The Art of Branding (by @guykawasaki).