Analytics is the core functionality of online marketing. Or to be precise, it’s one of the core functionality of marketing. Though we often associate analytics with SEO, SEM, and website or blog statistics, analytics is a pretty important functionality in social media as well. That’s why we invited, Jim Katzaman, an avid user and Twitter maven, to share his views about understanding and making the most out of Twitter Analytics.
Here’s a summary of our chat.
Guest: Jim Katzaman
Topic: All About Analytics
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.
According to proper definition, Twitter analytics tells you exactly how the content you share on Twitter is helping your business grow.
A1a Per Google, “Twitter's analytics help you understand how the content you share on Twitter grows your business.” #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/ewsRbGjXbD
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
Like the analytics section on most social channels, Twitter’s also has a central dashboard from where you can access numbers about tweets and links you’ve shared. You can analyze your profile’s growth using monthly summaries as well as daily and weekly statistics.
A1b More from Google: “Your Tweet activity dashboard is where you'll find metrics for every single one of your Tweets. You'll know exactly how many times Twitter users have seen, retweeted, liked and replied to each Tweet.” #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/9S8pyFB9cm
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
As our chat participant Lisa pointed out, your analytics is a great way to identify what’s working and what’s not. Because the dashboard includes information like impressions, likes, and retweets for every single tweet, you get a comprehensive picture of your performance. What’s more, you also get additional details like click through rates, top performing tweets, and top followers that you can use to formulate your strategy accordingly.
A1: Twitter's Analytics show you what content works and what content doesn't. It shows your metrics for each Tweet, impressions, reach, clicks and more. #TwitterSmarter
— Lisa Benfield (@LisaMBenfield) April 30, 2020
To find your Twitter Analytics, click here: https://analytics.twitter.com
Impressions are based on a particular tweet you posted and how it’s been received by your audience. The number depends on how many interactions it can generate on a feed.
A2a Impressions are different from tweet counts. They are related to interaction or engagement after the tweet has been delivered. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/JD5g5OWxTr
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
The tricky aspect of impressions is that people often think it’s the number of times a tweet was seen. But that’s not the case. As Avery reminded us, accurately speaking, impressions reflect the number of times your tweet appears on someone’s feed when they’re online. A lot of us scroll through tweets without even reading or noticing them—and impressions include all of those as well.
In other words, stats like link clicks, detail expands, replies, likes, and retweets are all results of an impression.
A2. Seeing several responses that impressions = the # of times a tweet was seen, but really it's the # of times it shows up in someones timeline. It doesn't mean they've actually "seen"/read it. They could have scrolled right by it. It measures potential. #TwitterSmarter
— Avery Horzewski (@averyh) April 30, 2020
The number of tweets, on the other hand, shows how many tweets you’ve posted all time. This doesn’t include replies, but does include retweets and quote retweets.
A2b Tweet count is the total number of tweets sent by an account, whereas the impressions are the tweets sent that actually generate interaction or replies from others on Twitter. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/HWOGOteJPV
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
What’s interesting about impressions is that initially, it depends on the number of people logged into Twitter and are actively accessing their feed when you tweet.
A3b The number of impressions is and isn't a reflection of how many followers are logged into Twitter at the moment, but it goes much further than that. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/VRtuwMj5T4
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
However, as our guest pointed out, there’re so many other elements that can help increase your tweet’s impression. For instance, if someone retweets it, the tweet’s reach extends to that person’s followers. The same goes for quote retweets. If you’ve tagged other users in your tweet, then their followers will see it too. If any of the people you’ve tagged replies to your tweet, then the impressions get another push.
Recently, with Twitter’s related tweets algorithm, if a fair number of your followers like your tweet, their followers will see the tweet as well.
And of course, impressions go up every time someone searches for the hashtag you’ve used, and finds your tweet.
A3c If people’s tweets are shared or commented on, their followers see it, which makes impressions go up. If people search the hashtag that is in your tweet, then they will add an impression. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/ibQ7TGUHhX
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
As Avery did for the previous question, Sab made the distinction quite clearly as well. Total impressions indicate the number of times your tweet was displayed on someone’s feed. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve seen it or engaged with it.
A3: Twitter Impressions is the number of times my tweet has showed up on someone’s TL — doesn’t necessarily mean it was viewed. This is a good indicator of brand presence #TwitterSmarter
— sabjackson.com ????? (@Sab_1908) April 30, 2020
Sprout Social has a great article about impressions and why you should care about them. Check it out.
One of the best things about analyzing your performance is that you learn when exactly your audience is online. Knowing this can help you schedule tweets at strategic times, targeting various groups of your audience.
A4b Using analytics, you can see when the largest portion of your audience is online. This gives you a better chance of a tweet gaining a ton of impressions and possibly for the tweet to reach a new, more broad audience. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/NZBfhxSDkl
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
Take Jim for example. Until recently, he didn’t post any tweets outside of his regular day. Why would he? Who’d be reading tweets well after midnight? Well, turns out Jim had developed quite an audience in the Philippines and Africa.
A4c Knowing my audience has led me to experiment with good results. I usually didn’t tweet in the middle of the night. Then I realized, because of chats and stories I’ve written from them, I’ve gotten a decent number of followers in the Philippines and Africa. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/chGjHQfZum
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
Having learned that from his analytics, Jim now schedules tweets to go out before dawn, because that’s the day time for that specific audience. And because the tweets are timed so well, he gets a lot of impressions and engagements from those 2 am tweets as well.
A4d Arbitrarily, I now schedule Philippines and Africa story-related tweets for 2 a.m. Each day. Impressions from those have ranged from a smattering to — in some cases — several thousand. As with so much about analytics, you never know. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/GjlrNKy528
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
That’s why it’s so important to know your audience. After all, as Joana told us, knowing who you’re talking to can help you identify the right content and an appropriate tone for your messages. Effective communication is the key to building a community.
a4
knowing your audience helps you
1⃣ to choose the right content that will get you to engage with others;
2⃣to find the right tone of voice.
3⃣to build a community!#twittersmarter— Joana Rita Sousa ? ?? (@JoanaRSSousa) April 30, 2020
Of course. But if you’re an individual user, you have to manually count the likes and engagements. If you write articles and posts on LinkedIn, you can still see the number of views on your posts, but you don’t get much more insight.
A5b In other words, you have to have a business account on Facebook or LinkedIn to see how your content is doing in detail. Other than that, you count likes and comments on both platforms. At least LinkedIn will tell you views even if you’re not a business. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/NhZpk0GGrx
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
As our guest explained, Medium’s statistics can be quite confusing. It’s often unclear why your content has or hasn’t performed well.
A5c Now we slip into black magic. Medium has analytics, and they are other-worldly. Here’s a comparison: Since March, one of my original posts on Data Driven Investor has gotten 1,200 views on that site, 265 on LinkedIn and — I kid you not — eight on Medium. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/yu8sT0r7EY
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
On the flip side, however, as Christine pointed out Facebook’s page analytics is super thorough. And it’s not surprising either, with the amount of data they collect and the ads that show up on the platform. On Instagram, you get complete analytics only if you have either a Business or a Creator account.
A5.
❤️Facebook has crazy-good, highly detailed analytics (to a creepy degree!)
❤️Instagram has analytics for Business and Creator accounts only
❤️LinkedIn has lame analytics unless you pay#TwitterSmarter— christine gritmon ✨@?✨ (@cgritmon) April 30, 2020
Clearly, Twitter’s the only platform offering in-dept analytics for free.
And now we enter a gray area. If you’ve been on Twitter for long and you’ve been observing your analytics, you might’ve noticed that sometimes your statistics don’t seem right. Though Twitter hasn’t officially given a reason, Jim explained what he experienced.
A6b One of the worst instances of flattening the curve came a couple years ago when — one day after another — previous tweets and impressions gradually disappeared until the entire month of stats were gone. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/w047IWYdbk
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
About a couple of years ago, tweets and their statistics started to disappear from the analytics dashboard.
A6c Then miraculously, everything reappeared. This coincided when it turned out Twitter was making a major change — not counting photos against characters or expanding from 140 to 280 characters. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/K9ZII6ud9S
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
However, not long afterwards, they all reappeared. According to Jim, this was about the same time they were updating their algorithm and transitioning from 140 to 280 characters. It’s possible that it could’ve been an issue on Twitter’s side during the changeover, but no one can tell for sure.
Madalyn also confirmed the phenomenon. She’s had the same experience a few times and every time, the analytics came back fine.
A6: Over the years I've seen my analytics flatline out of nowhere and then weeks later it goes back to normal. @JKatzaman and I have discussed this on occasion. He was the first one to notify me that it happened to him as well. Here I thought it was just me. #TwitterSmarter https://t.co/bhD09Euz9X
— Madalyn Sklar – Digital Marketing since 1996 (@MadalynSklar) April 30, 2020
So the lesson from this question? If you open up your analytics today and see a flat line for your monthly stats, don’t panic. It’ll all come back in due course.
Listen to Jim, y’all. He knows what he’s talking about when he says understand why you’re checking your analytics in the first place. If you’re a marketer, you may be looking for stats that validate your tweets, your campaigns, and even experiments you’re making.
A7a Ask yourself why you are checking analytics. Are you a marketer justifying your existence to a client? Are you doing it for your own peace of mind? #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/VxxuHn52IE
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
If, like our guest, you’re checking analytics just because you’re curious, then make sure you learn something from it. Jim told us how he usually dives deep into his analytics, so much so that he always has analytics open, checking his tweets’ performance in real time.
A7b Being the latter, when I learn something, I go off the deep end. On my PC, I have several windows open, one of them is Twitter analytics. I keep track in real time of how I’m doing. This is a bit obsessive and excessive. Do what works best for you. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/BxNUiPFyr8
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
If you need peace of mind, then go ahead and do what you must—even if it’s a bit obsessive in others’ view.
There’s no right answer to this question. Some of our community members don’t ever check their analytics. And even though they missing out on some important information, they still engage in real time, so much so that they know their community quite well. Some others, like Jim, check analytics all the time.
As our friend said, how often you check your analytics also depends on how frequently you tweet. Not everyone posts ten tweets a day, and similarly, not everyone has a thronging community of followers who engage on multiple tweets throughout the day.
A7: This varies depending on your posting frequency. You can check too much though. So once a day or an hour or so after important posts is probably good.#TwitterSmarter
— BerNerd (@BerNerd87746576) April 30, 2020
Generally, if you’re a marketer or a business person managing your brand handle, it helps to check your analytics at least once every month. That way, you get a fairly decent view of how you’re doing.
Your engagement rate is the number of engagements on a tweet divided by its impressions.
Of course, some tweets—like videos, GIFs, and images—get more engagement than others. That said, an average of 2 percent engagement rate seems to be a good benchmark.
A8a Talking with @MadalynSklar a while back, she told me a good percent of engagements per tweet is 2 percent, which she emphasized is because she gets great engagement. I’m lucky to hit 1 percent overall. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/W2tBYtRu5W
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
As for trustworthiness, you decide for yourself. As Jim illustrated, a tweet from a highly influential host of a Twitter chat got one like and no retweets. But it ended up getting 20,000 impressions.
A8b As for the numbers, they seem squishy at best. Here are two examples from Twitter chats. A tweet from one chat — getting only one like by the host with several million followers but not one retweet — eventually got more than 20,000 impressions. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/nQh9eRiY8y
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
In another situation, a tweet that had four retweets only made about 100 impressions.
A8c In another chat, a tweet with four retweets barely cleared 100 impressions. So, play the numbers game at your own risk, but don’t get enamored by the statistics. There is an old saying: Figures lie, and liars figure. Be true to yourself. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/fvpmaC8NjM
— Jim Katzaman – Get Debt-Free One Family at a Time (@JKatzaman) April 30, 2020
As our friend shared with us, though a lot of articles and users would attest to varying engagement rates, what matters more is how genuine those engagements are. Image clicks, video plays, and tweet expansions are all engagements, but aside from these, link clicks, replies, quote retweets, and profile clicks are more quality engagements—they either extend your reach or establish a relationship.
A8. You mean stats-wise? I remember reading somewhere that 1-3% for each tweet is good?
However, it's the quality that counts for me. I see as 'good' engagement the number of comments, RTs and likes. Excellent: link clicks. My BEST KPI though is profile clicks. #TwitterSmarter
— Draseum (@draseum) April 30, 2020
Sure, numbers are enticing statistics, but don’t forget that we’re all playing the algorithm game on social media. It’s hard to pinpoint causes and cures for statistics.
Well, that’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading and for more insight from our chat with Jim, check out this Twitter Moment that Joana put together.
And if you’ve got some time next Thursday, join us at 1pm ET for our next #TwitterSmarter chat.
About me, Narmadhaa:
I write all things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.
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