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Tag: Twitter Analytics

  • Twitter Gives Analytics Access To iPhone Users

    Twitter opened up its analytics offering to all users back in the summer, giving people a better look at the engagement surrounding any given tweet. This was only for the desktop, however.

    Now, some are starting to be able to access the feature on their phones. Specifically, some iPhone users now have it.

    Twitter quietly made this official in a support document (via MacStories), saying:

    On mobile (currently available on Twitter for iPhone), click on one of your Tweets to get to the Tweet detail page, then tap “View Tweet activity.” Make sure you have installed the latest version of Twitter for iPhone.

    It’s unclear when this might be expanded to additional mobile platforms like Android. Apparently not all iPhone users are getting it, so it might still be rolling out.

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Analytics Reveal Low Reach, Suspect Engagement

    “On Twitter, nothing comes between your Tweets and your followers.”

    That’s what Twitter said in July when it introduced organic tweet analytics. This week, Twitter opened the analytics dashboard to all users after previously only letting advertisers and verified users access it. Now everyone gets to see each of their tweets’ impressions, engagements, and engagement rate. The question is how useful is this information really?

    Can you engage in effective marketing on Twitter without paying? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    Twitter rival Facebook has been making it increasingly difficult for marketers to reach their audiences without paying. You’ve no doubt heard about the organic reach decline story by now.

    When Twitter introduced organic tweet analytics, it seemed to suggest that you don’t have to worry about that type of thing on Twitter (see the introductory quote above). While that maybe technically true (at least for now – some fear Twitter will folllow Facebook’s algorithmic News Feed approach eventually), Twitter tends to be an entirely different experience for users in terms of volume of accounts users’ follow. Most people who use both Facebook and Twitter likely follow significantly more Twitter accounts. Some of these Twitter accounts push out a tremendous amount of content. Timelines are bombarded. So while you may have access to everything from all accounts you follow, it’s going to take you a long time to dig through it all if you follow very many accounts, and chances are, you’re going to miss a lot of tweets.

    Twitter’s new analytics show you just what kind of reach you’re achieving. You can clearly see how many impressions one of your tweets got. This is, of course, the number of times that a tweet was seen. You can also see engagements and engagement rate.

    Here’s where Twitter’s analytics could make things seem a little better than they actually are.

    When you hover over the word engagements, it explains just exactly what that means: “Total number of times a user has interacted with a tweet. This includes all clicks anywhere on the tweet (including hashtags, links, avatar, username, and Tweet expansion), retweets, replies, follows, and favorites.” Actually, it also includes clicks on embedded media, as pointed out in a help center article.

    That’s a lot more broad than you might otherwise think. Jim Edwards at Business Insider, writing about the launch, describes engagement of one of his tweets as being comprised of retweets and favorites. It’s entirely possible that this is the case in this instance (he doesn’t show the screenshot for the drill-down of the specific tweet), but that number is often going to be comprised of additional “engagements” including less meaningful ones like hashtag clicks or avatar clicks.

    If you’re a business trying to get a real action out of a user, that engagement number may not be incredibly meaningful.

    Think about it like this. If you ran an ad in a publication’s email newsletter, a metric that takes into account irrelevant clicks within that newsletter, such as those on the support link or on a link in an article, wouldn’t be all that helpful.

    Of course Twitter’s new release is all about giving non-paying users access to some insights that paying customers are getting, and certainly a play to transition some of those freeloaders into paying customers. There is, after all, a link to Twitter’s Advertising site as well as links to set up billing and whatnot from the dashboard page. They want you to look at your numbers, and then try to boost them with advertising. It makes a great deal of sense for Twitter.

    While the engagement metric may not be the most helpful thing in the world, Twitter does at least provide some pretty good options for those that decide to take the plunge into the paid side of things. Tweet engagement campaigns are an option, but you can also do followers, clicks/conversions, app installs/engagements, leads, etc.

    You can’t really complain about free data. It’s just something that people relying on an organic presence should be aware of. “Engagement” may not be as great as it seems.

    For that matter, engagement rates are higher when you have less followers, because this is calculated by dividing engagements by impressions. You may have a high engagement rate on a tweet, but how much is that really helping you if you if a small number of people are seeing it to begin with?

    And that’s just it. Even if you have a large number of followers, it’s likely that a small number of them are actually seeing the tweets. Many seem to consider this the chief revelation from Twitter’s new dashboard.

    According to Twitter itself, brands that tweet two to three times a day can reach roughly 30% of their follower base during a given week. “This indicates that Tweet consistency is a key factor when it comes to maximizing your organic reach on Twitter,” it said.

    So, you should probably tweet more frequently if anything.

    Other than that, the main takeaway here is that impressions are your first hurdle on Twitter, but even after that, engagement is is not necessarily as great as you may have thought. Unsurprisingly, and like most other platforms, you’re probably going to have to pay to play to get any real bang out of Twitter for marketing.

    Twitter does provide some “best practices,” which include keeping tweets conversational, employing your knowledge and voice, making content shareable, tweeting exceptional content, asking questions and listening, tweeting things that are timely, and experimenting with different wording and content. They elaborate on all of these here.

    Are you seeing meaningful engagement leading to conversions from your organic Twitter efforts? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Opens Analytics To All Users

    Twitter announced the expansion of organic tweet analytics, opening its dashboard to all users. Twitter launched the dashboard in July, but it was only available to advertisers and verified users (and you know how hard it can be to become one of those).

    Twitter says this in a Help Center document:

    The Tweet activity dashboard is available to users who primarily tweet in English, French, Japanese, and Spanish, and have had an account for at least 14 days. We’re working to roll this out to everyone soon.

    The dashboard lets you see how many times users have viewed and engaged with tweets, and how they’re performing in real time. You can also compare impressions, total engagements, and retweets month over month.

    You can also use the tweet details page to see how many retweets, replies, favorites, follows, link clicks, and embedded media clicks each tweet received.

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Launches Analytics For Organic Tweets

    Twitter announced the launch of some new analytics features for organic tweets via a new enhanced tweet activity dashboard.

    Advertisers will be able to see how many times users have viewed and engaged with their organic tweets. The dashboard lets you see how tweets are performing in real time, compare impressions, total engagements, and retweets month over month, and use the tweet details page to see how many retweets, replies, favorites, follows, link clicks, and embedded media clicks each tweet received.

    You can also export your performance metrics into a CSV file, which includes both organic and promoted data.

    In a blog post, Twitter lists the following as best practices for using the dashboard to improve content strategy:

    • Pay attention to when you tweet. Note which time of day and day of the week yields the highest engagement and impressions.
    • Analyze the frequency of your Tweets. Use your new insights to determine your Tweet cadence.
    • Identify what Tweet mechanics work, and which aren’t as effective. Keep an eye on elements like different calls to action, the inclusion of rich media and copy length.


    The dashboard is available to all advertisers, Twitter Card publishers, and verified users.

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter Launches Card Analytics Dashboard

    Twitter Launches Card Analytics Dashboard

    Twitter announced the launch of a new analytics offering for Twitter Cards today, aimed at helping publishers, marketers and developers understand how certain types of cards they’re using are performing.

    That includes tweets with pictures, videos, content previews, deep links for apps, and other rich media Tweets.

    Now for the first time you can gain insight into how your content is performing on Twitter, and find personalized tips to help make more strategic decisions about your use of Cards,” says analytics product manager Buster Benson. “Along the way, you’ll get insights on how to do even better. Small changes –– using a different Twitter Card, conversing more with the followers who love your content, or installing or changing the location of a Tweet button –– can make a big difference.”

    Twitter Card Analytics

    Twitter Cards

    Users will also be able to see how Twitter users engage with all of their tweets and get insight into their followers (including follower growth rate) in the Twitter Card analytics dashboard.

    Twitter tested the offering with a handful of partners including BuzzFeed, NBC News, Time, ESPN, MLB, Flipboard, Etsy, Foursquare and Path.

    All card users and advertisers should be getting the new dashboard over the next few days.

    Images via Twitter

  • Twitter Analytics Now Available To All Users

    Twitter Analytics is now available to any user, not just Twitter’s advertising partners. Christopher Penn discovered this, and wrote about it on his blog, and it has since been picked up by several tech news outlets.

    You should be able to access Twitter Analytics by going to settings, Twitter Ads, and from the Ads homepage, going to “Analytics”. From there, you can find “Timeline activity”.

    From there, Twitter will show you your history of tweeting, along with engagement metrics for each tweet: number of favorites, number of retweets and number of replies. You can organize the tweet chart by Best, Good, and All.

    It will also show you a visual timeline of the mentions, follows and unfollows you receive over a two-month period.

    Timeline

    If you select “Followers” from the dashboard, you can see a separate dashboard showing your follower activity over time. It shows most unique interests and top interests of your followers by percentage, as well as follower locations, including the top cities, and gender. Additionally, it shows who your followers also follow.

    Followers

    While the offering appears to be available to all Twitter users, it should be noted that the data isn’t completely there for everybody.

  • Dear Twitter Analytics…You’re Late

    We were first given a glimpse of what Twitter Analytics would look like in late 2010 and told that they would be released by the end of the year. Well, that time frame passed and still no native Twitter Analytics. No problem, things happen.

    However, nine months deep into 2011, the Twitter Developers blog gave us a glimpse of the new and improved Twitter Analytics. In addition to a good looking layout, and what appeared to be tracking of not only your account but Tweet button stats and API access as well, it looked promising. The post stated that these analytics would be rolling out to everyone “within the next few weeks.” Hmm…2011 came and went and still no native Twitter Analytics.

    Now here we are, five months into 2012 and the only word we have about Twitter analytics is that, “it’s taking longer than originally planned to ready for wider use.” Meanwhile both Facebook and YouTube have completely revamped their analytics platforms and delivered deeper insights into the activity on their platforms. This is officially ridiculous.

    If history is any indicator, 2012 is going to be gone in the blink of an eye without a real analytics release as well. You would think with all of the acquisitions and rounds of funding Twitter has executed over the last two to three years that they would have found, acquired, or hired someone who could have delivered on this vitally essential feature of any modern social platform.

    Why it’s taking Twitter so long to catch up to its rivals, I have no idea. However it’s no secret that Twitter needs to find more revenue streams, and this could be one. By charging a nominal fee to people and brands that care about the analytics, they could start bringing in multiple, small streams of revenue.

    What’s so difficult about this? Other platforms, which are far more comprehensive than Twitter, have had at least basic analytics for years. This isn’t rocket science… is it?

    So, even though there are no signs of Twitter ever getting their act together and giving us marketers a native analytics platform to work from, there are options available. Thanks to Twitter’s mostly open API, there are several sites out there that will help you monitor and analyze the progress of both you and your competitors’ Twitter efforts.

    1. Manual Tracking
    Setup a spreadsheet and track all of the metrics applicable to your brand. RT’s, Mentions, Followers, Following, Lists, etc. If it’s important, track it. Just be sure to update it weekly so that it doesn’t become an unmanageable amount of data.

    Pro Tip: Updating weekly spreadsheets is a great task to delegate to interns to familiarize them with the platform and progress tracking.

    2. Topsy
    Track mentions of yourself and two competitors for up to 30 days and see the top links for the past 24 hours. If you’re prepared to do some manual tracking, you can use Topsy to look at domains, keywords, brand names, hashtags, etc. and track the results.

    Pro Tip: Topsy is a great supplement to any manual spreadsheet data aggregation.

    3. Twitter Counter
    Compare up to three brands side by side. Under the free plan you can monitor Followers, Following, Tweets, and a mix of Tweets and Followers for the past three months. If you upgrade to a paid option, it includes Mentions, ReTweets, Your Retweet, and Your Mentions, and can go as far back as six months.

    Pro Tip: This tool is great for researching competitors and tracking your own progress.

    4. TweetStats
    Get your Tweet Timeline and see what month, day, and time the account is most active. TweetStats collects information on daily tweets, hourly tweets, replies, RTs, Friend and Followers stats, and even see what interface(s) were used to tweet. It’s also possible to create a word cloud comprised of the most used terms and hashtags by the account.

    Pro Tip: In addition to account stats, you can pull current stats on Twitter for wide trends and platform usage!

    5. Xefer
    Xefer will provide very simple analytics. It will show you some stats for around the last eight months or so, depending on the activity level of the account. It breaks tweets down into the time of day and day of the week so you can see the timing and volume of interaction. Also included on the page is a reply explorer so you can see high engagement users and view those conversations.

    6. The Archivist
    Look at Tweet volume, top users, tweet vs retweet, top words, top URLs, and platform. Each of these graphs can be expanded to show more detail. Below the graphs is a stream updated with mentions of the account. It’s a good way to get a quick snapshot of an account or topic and gage the relative health of the account.

    7. MentionMap
    See who and what a user mentions the most and follow the trail to see how topics and people are connected. You can map the activity of your account and the hashtags associated with campaigns or promotions.

    8. TwentyFeet
    Track a variety of details about your Twitter account and even competitors. TwentyFeet uses publicly available data and private data (after you authorize it) to find reputation indicators, influence indicators, conversations, following analysis, and more.

    Pro Tip: You can also add Facebook, YouTube, Bit.ly, MySpace, and Google Analytics accounts to be tracked.

    9. Export.ly
    Export.ly serves up a polished report that you can export to Excel or Powerpoint. It’s free with a Tweet so long as the account you’re looking at is under 10,000 followers. Above that you’ll need a Simply Measured account to access the report. You can also get detailed reports for Facebook and Google Analytics.

    Pro Tip: Exporting the report to Excel makes it easy to tailor the presentation with your own company colors and deliver a great looking report.

    10. SMMS analytics
    Many SMMS platforms (Social Media Management Systems) have analytics built into them. Check out platforms like Hootsuite, Shoutlet, Sprout Social, Argyle, and others. Not only do they allow you to interact and post directly from the platforms, but will track your progress and allow you to pull reports from their platforms.