Twitter Metrics to be aware of

We all focus on creating unique, interesting content and try to increase engagement with your followers but are we paying attention to how successful we are at it?

The following are the common terms you’ll encounter when delving into your Twitter metrics:

Direct Messages (DM) – Private messages sent from one Twitter user to another.
Like – your reason for liking can be two-fold, one to show that you appreciate the Tweet and also to ‘save’ for later reading.
Followers – The number of people following your account
Mention – A Tweet in which your @username is included.
Reply – A response to a tweet that begins with your @username.
Retweet (RT) – Occurs when a user shares an existing Tweet published by you (or another Twitter account) with their followers.
Quote Tweet – When a follower adds their own comment when retweeting your original tweet.

To see how your Twitter account is performing visit your Activity Dashboard. You can do this by going to your profile and scrolling down to ‘Analytics’. Here you’ll see how followers engage with your tweets in real time and on a month by month basis. Each option gives you an overview of the number of retweets, replies, likes, follows and clicks each of your tweets receive.

Your dashboard includes ‘Tweets’, ‘Audience’ and ‘Events’ tabs. In addition to this there’s a ‘More’ tab which gives you access to Twitter Card & Video data. Each tab features focused data that can then influence your Twitter strategy.

Home Tab

Monthly summary of your publishing highlights, including top tweet, mention, follower & media tweet. It also gives you a monthly metrics summary including:

The number of tweets you posted during the given timescale.
The number of people who saw your Tweet in their timeline or search results – called Impressions.
The number of times your Twitter profile was visited as a result of a published tweet.
How many times your @username has been mentioned
New followers achieved

You can also delve deeper by pulling up metrics for individual top tweets by clicking on the “View Tweet Activity” button below your highlighted tweet.

Tweets Tab

Displays all of the activity around all the tweets that you’ve published. The metrics to keep track of here are:

Engagement – This is all the follower interaction with your tweet including mentions, replies, retweets, likes and new followers.
Engagement Rate – This is the number of engagements divided by impressions. The higher the figure the better your engagement is.

Audiences Tab

This helps you delve into valuable information about your followers and the people who’ve engaged with you. There’s a wealth of info here including:

Demographics – Gender, income, marital status, education etc.
Interests – Shows what your followers are interested in (based on their own twitter activity).
Lifestyle – Breaks down follower occupation & TV genre preferences
Mobile footprint: – Not hugely helpful for most businesses – lists most popular carrier and smartphone.

Events Tab

Contains a range of data on events & trends which can really help spark ideas for future campaigns.

More Tab

Options including Twitter Cards, videos & conversion tracking.

Summary

All of this data can be reviewed and help you refine your content publishing to make it more focused and relevant to your followers. Ensuring that your content is relevant and interesting to your audience is key. By doing this you can then potentially increase your engagement with your followers and increase your reach.

If you need more information or help on how Twitter could work for your business, please get in touch with me at http://paulkirkdesign.co.uk or at @PKirk_designer and don’t forget #bemoresocial