Calling all tweeters – Twitter’s new and improved analytics is a major upgrade that provides rich Twitter data you could only dream about before. And as of yesterday, it's available to everyone, not just advertisers!
Absolutely thrilled to open up access to http://t.co/wcU6oj9hFM to EVERYONE. Check it out, and let us know what you think!
— Ian Chan (@chanian) August 27, 2014Twitter analytics hasn't been getting a ton of attention, likely due to the fact that the analytics were hidden away within the ad platform. Now you can find this new analytics data by visiting https://analytics.twitter.com/. Then prepare to be amazed.
New & Improved Twitter Analytics: Sweet Tweet Data!
Upon first logging into the new Twitter analytics, you’ll feel like a fat kid at an ice cream factory. Sorry, I mean big boned kid in an ice cream factory. We can only hope you aren’t lactose intolerant, because it’s time to gorge.
The new Twitter analytics features bright eye-candy graphs in the right column reflecting activity from the past 28 days.
The graphs provide data for several key tweet metrics:
- impressions
- engagement rates
- link clicks
- retweets
- favorites
- replies
Click on any one individual tweet and you’ll see with a pop-up screen detailing the individual tweet’s impressions over the first 24 hours, plus other valuable metrics like:
- Embedded media clicks (clicks to view a photo/video when applicable)
- Detail expands (# of times a user clicked to view details of a tweet)
- Favorites
- Replies
- Link clicks (clicks on URL or Twitter card)
- User profile clicks (clicks on name, @handle, or Twitter author profile photo)
- Retweets
As a bonus, all this delicious data can be easily exported. The exported table data includes the full tweet text, the tweet permalinks, plus extra goodies like:
- Timestamps
- Hashtag clicks
- App opens
- Follows
- Email tweet
- Plus promoted metrics for advertisers
In addition to in-depth tweet data, if you go up top and hit the Analytics dropdown again, you’ll see that the 2b=nd option is Followers. Click that and you’ll get plenty of info about your Twitter stalkers.
Twitter Analytics: Followers
You’ll see trends in your follower count displayed by a line chart, but the real cool stuff happens when you scroll down. You’ll discover demographic info on:
- # of followers in different countries, states, and cities
- What % of your followers are male vs. female
- Other accounts that your followers also follow
- Your followers’ top interests
- Your followers’ “unique” interests
I found the interests data to be especially exciting, as it can definitely give you some deeper insight about your audience and could even generate ideas for creating relevant content that your followers would be likely to enjoy.
I’m not quite sure I completely understand the “unique” interests section. Most of the unique interests of my followers (for my food truck blog) matched the top interests, although there were a couple variations.
It seems that while the top interests tend to be more general (food, cooking, dining out, movies, etc.), the unique interests are a bit more targeted and specific (e.g. fine dining, Mexican food). I believe the unique interests section is where you may find some great revelations about your audience’s specific appetites and interests.
Twitter Analytics Cons: What Needs Improvement
While the new Twitter analytics is a great asset, there are a few things that could be better:
- Clarification of Engagement Metrics. Some Twitter metric lingo tends to leave me confused. For example, in the old Twitter analytics setup, mentions was a metric, which was whenever someone tweeted your @handle (this often overlapped with other metrics). Mentions is gone now, and while replies and retweets remain, further explanation would be nice. Is a manual retweet labeled as a retweet or a reply? What happens when a tweet is sent with your @handle but it isn’t technically a retweet or reply to a previous tweet?
- More Follower Data. The follower data in the new Twitter analytics is great, but while we’re at it, why not add even more info about followers? What hashtags are my followers using? Which of my followers are the most active?
For the most part, the new Twitter analytics is great. My main complaint, up until yesterday, was that Twitter wouldn't let everyone access Analytics without inputting a credit card. Kudos to them for opening up Twitter analytics for all.
Have you checked out the new Twitter analytics? What do you think?