Assessing Activity with Twitter Analytics
Twitter analytics provides a good way to assess your tweets and see how followers interact with your timeline
This week in our Mobile and Social Media Storytelling course at Lehigh University, we dug into the data behind the tweets we’ve been composing since the summer semester began.
Twitter analytics has opened my eyes to how my followers, and others who may come across the tweet, respond to my content. It points out which tweets are the most successful in reaching audiences, as well as the tweets that are most successful in engaging viewers.
Although connected in some ways, Twitter impressions and Twitter engagement are different. Impressions are the number of times a Twitter user viewed your tweet, while engagement tabulates the number of interactions. These interactions could include clicking on a hashtag, the profile that tweeted it or any links or media attached to it.
Another important data point is the engagement rate. This is the ratio of engagement to impressions, which is important. If you have a lot of impressions but not much engagement, then your engagement rate will be small.
Looking through my Twitter profile’s analytics, I noticed that many of the tweets that gained a lot of impressions were not related to the class. I tagged a friend’s account in one tweet, and it gained the most impressions (893), but had only 30 engagements, resulting in a 3.4% engagement rate.
Looking back at the tweet and wondering why it gained so many more impressions than other tweets was simple: It was quote-tweeted. Sydney Staples, who has over 600 followers on the platform, amplified my content.
The tweets with the most engagement and the highest engagement rate both included the class hashtag, #LUComm197. The first tweet was related to my first published YouTube video that was published on Lehigh Mobile Storytelling on Medium. This was the second tweet I had ever tweeted that included a link. The traffic behind this tweet was not only due to the link embedded, but also due to the new following that I was slowly gaining at the time.
The other tweet with the most engagement and highest engagement rate (35%), included pictures of puppies while I was working on an assignment due later that week. This tweet gained engagement most likely due to the cute little pups that were on display. Fun fact, this tweet is also my second most-liked tweet.
I learned so much from using Twitter, especially the analytics function. After looking through each tweet and seeing the data analytics provided for each, I now know what attracts people to a profile and engages followers. The posts that got the most engagement included links and photos — especially photos that can draw an audience in.
I believe that I could have improved my numbers by tweeting more and tagging people in my tweets that might be relevant. By tagging people who have a stronger following and the possibility of retweeting or quoting it, I could have gained more followers and engagements on my tweets.
In the future, I hope to continue building a following for my account. I plan to continue posting on Twitter frequently and using relevant hashtags and links to draw people in. Using Twitter will continue to build up my professional and social profile if I use the techniques I’ve learned.
