What’s a Twitter impression worth?

Twitter impressions are the number of times a tweet shows up in somebody’s timeline. That means every time it’s served up, it counts as an impression. Sure, you need impressions for someone to see your tweet, but an impression doesn’t mean it was actually seen.

If it’s in a timeline someone scrolls past, or has it open and refreshes, it counts as an impression.

What you want is engagement. Impressions aren’t visible to anyone but you. Engagement — likes and retweets — are public indicators that someone values your tweet enough to interact.

Impressions are something to watch, though. If your tweet averages 100 impressions typically and — BAM — suddenly one of your tweets get 4,000 impressions, it’s an indicator that something is happening. Diagnosing why and how your tweet got that kind of notice can help you figure out how to do it again.

Follows.com lists several reasons your tweet might suddenly get more impressions:

· Your tweet lined up with a trending topic

· An influencer, or someone with a lot of followers, retweeted or replied

· Your tweet was mentioned outside of twitter. Readers of that mention will also count as impressions.