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Want to be influential on Twitter? You'll have to work hard at it. Sustained personal engagement on Twitter is the most pivotal driver of influence on the microblogging site, say researchers at the Max Planck Institute.

Researchers at the institute analysed 1.7 billion tweets from 54 million Twitter users and discovered that true influence is determined by personal effort and active engagement with followers. The researchers also stated that sustained and relevant engagement was a more important driver of influence than simply having a large following.

They looked at different measures of influence, which they identified as: indegree (the number of people who follow each user), retweets and mentions. The researchers then looked at how effective influential users were in spreading popular news topics.

The study's authors claim the findings have repercussions for viral marketing as the number of followers alone reveal little about the influence of a given user.

'We found that influence is not gained spontaneously or accidentally, but through concerted effort. In order to gain and maintain influence, users need to keep great personal involvement,' the report's authors said.

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