 Twitter has unveiled a suite of analytic tools that provide users and advertisers with more and better data, through which to measure the effectiveness of their respective tweets. For professional Twitter users, these analytics can be invaluable to determine which tweets are working, which aren’t, and what steps you can take to improve your results.
Here’s a quick look at some of the information that Twitter makes available to you:
- It provides the Number of Impressions for every tweet that you've sent (recording the number of people who've actually see it); Engagement (the number of people who have actually clicked on your links, Re-tweeted it, favorited it, or replied to it), and the overall Engagement Rate.
- It provides Running Averages of your Engagement Rate, your link "clicks," favorites, re-tweets and replies, using a 28 Day Average.
- It also shows a breakdown of your followers, including growth, top interests, locations, gender, as well as showing who else your Twitter followers are currently following.
Twitter Updates User Profiles for iOS 7 and Newer
iPhone users just received a whole new Twitter experience, following Twitter’s recent update to its profiles. In what they're calling their “biggest update to profiles to date,” users will see a new design that emphasizes bios and photos.
For those using iOS 7 or newer on their iPhones, they'ill now be able to see updated profiles. Their "new" bio will be immediately viewable on Twitter. Previously, users had to navigate to their bio, because the Twitter feed was what displayed first.
For iPhone users using the latest operating system, iOS 8, they can now Favorite, Follow, and Re-Tweet, directly from within a "push" notification. This will definitely simplify working within Twitter on an iPhone. |
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Obviously, a periodic review of these analytics is very helpful to any business using Twitter. Some general observations, based on my own experience:
- Engagements with a specific call to action, i.e., asking a simple question, tend to have the highest engagement.
- Tweets thad contain images also tend to receive high engagement.
- Interesting and timely content always pulls higher than generic tweets.
- Hashtags help to increase your audience.
If you're looking to use your analytics more proactively, here are a couple of thoughts:
- Track your tweets against the day of the week and the hour of the day in which you're sending them. A simple spreadsheet can help you track this info, and provide insight into which days and times can maximize engagement with your audience.
- Perform a Content Analysis: Twitter has no idea what your Tweeting about, but you do. Generic industry information, event announcememts, or product promotions all have different levels of appeal to your audience. In your optimal day/time spreadsheet, track your tweets by the "type" of content, to get a better idea of what "works" and what doesn’t.
- Are you actually reaching your intended audience? Track your followers by whichever profile characteristics are most important to you. Is geography or region important? What about type (or size) of business they're in? Check your followers against your target audience profile, and make sure that you're aiming for the right targets. And, more importantly, that you're providing them with regular doses of content that's meaningful to them.
So, bookmark your analytics page and check it regularly to see how your tweets are performing. However, don't become too obsessive about them... you might wind-up losing some of the spontanaeity that makes Twitter so popular. If you spend too much energy determining which tweets are most popular and tweaking your Twitter strategy to boost ‘engagement,’ it's entirely possible that you'll end-up missing out on opportunities to grow your base of followers.
Questions or comments? contact Dave Orban or call (609) 586-4286. |
