Maybe you're spending too much time on Twitter
SteveRecently Twitter made available to all users of the service its advanced analytics tools that show interesting statistics around impressions, (how many people actually saw a tweet), engagement, (replies, favorites, retweets), and trends over time on these metrics.
To check it out for your own tweets, just sign in to Twitter then click on http://analytics.twitter.com/
Below is a screen capture of the top part of my Twitter analytics review from this morning, take a look and then a few comments from me after the image:
Apologies if it is a little hard to read, but the couple of points I wanted to call out from observing my own data and that might be applicable to you are not really dependent on the precise data points anyway.
Point 1 - Hardly anyone sees the average Tweet. As of this week I have about 25.4K followers, give or take a few. The average impressions, (people that actually SEE my wonderful Tweets), ranges between about 500 on the low end and 1,200 on the high end. So if you do the math, that means only about 2% - 3.5% of my followers even see the average Tweet. Of course, I have little idea which of my followers these are, but that is a separate point.
Point 2 - Of the people that actually see my Tweets, about 1% of that group actually "engages" with the update - (replies, RTs, favorites, link clicks, etc.), resulting in an engagement level, when compared to the overall number of followers I have, is almost akin to me simply shouting my status updates and pithy tweets out of the window. Maybe 1 in 10 of my Tweets have 0 engagements, meaning no one replied or clicked or favorited, etc. That is the tweet falling in the woods and having no one there to hear it scenario.
Point 3 - I think we all, me included, need to keep Twitter, (and every other social network probably), in perspective as to its true reach, value, and the imprimatur it foists on those who have seemed to "figure it out". I have way more followers than the average Twitter user. But I am not sure that really means all that much when looking at some of this data. And I am not even talking about the folks who have bought followers or somehow gamed the system in other ways. That is another story totally.
I guess my final point is that I and everyone else needs to keep data like this in mind and not just when thinking about Twitter or social networking in general. It is really more about figuring out where and how to spend your time and effort such that you are getting closer to whatever it is you are chasing. And if Twitter is a part of that strategy for you, then you definitely ought to dig in to your analytics and get behind the data.
What do you think, have you checked out your Twitter analytics? Are my numbers representative or am I just bad at Twitter?
Reader Comments (2)
My percentages are similar, Steve, with half your number of followers. Biggest mistake Twitter ever made givng us this. Since the analytics make clear that tweeting is about as effective reaching people as throwing leaflets out the window of a Manhattan skyscraper! If it even opened.
I've had access to my analytics for awhile, and I have documented a few trends.
1. Twitter is similar to email, sorta. I am a human being, not a brand, but my engagement rate falls around that of an email campaign. For me, it's just as effective as a newsletter. And it's free — as opposed to mailchimp or constant contact.
2. Pictures help.Engagement, links, RTs, etc., are always higher with a photo, which points to a growing and continuing trend away from words to photos. We're too stupid and too busy to read anything on the internet. Or words are too slow. I'm not sure. Reminds me of this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/paulj2/idiocracy-prophecies-85a
3. The best marketing is no marketing. Everybody wants to be famous and have a personal brand. Nobody wants to be real. We're all holding back shame and secrets. My tweets about cat pee have a higher engagement rate than my tweets about HR tech.
So what does this mean?
I think you're right. We are probably spending too much time on Twitter.