There was an article recently (well, more like a rant) from Jon Loomer that talked about Facebook marketing and reach. The article basically tells the reader, if they hate Facebook so much, then maybe they should just abandon it. I actually really enjoyed Jon's post and he brought up some significant arguments regarding post reach - and he asked the reader to look at their Twitter analytics for comparison...
Well, this got me thinking, how well are my tweets really doing?
And compared with Facebook, how much better or worse does an average tweet do?
Well, for each of us it will differ. It will depend on your audience on each platform - how many followers, how frequently you post, what times of day you post, what content you post, etc.
But how do you find out what your Twitter analytics look like so that you can compare? It's actually so simple!
Log into your Twitter account on your computer and then go to this website: https://analytics.twitter.com
Seriously, that's all you have to do!!
When your account information populates, you can see a ton of information about your Twitter account.
The page defaults to your Tweets and gives you a 28 day recap of your Twitter activity. The graph shows the daily organic impressions ("number of times users saw the tweet") for your account. If you scroll down, you can get more detailed information for each individual tweet in that time period. This information will include your Impressions, Engagement ("total number of times a user has interacted with a tweet" which includes clicking, clicking a link, favoriting, retweeting, etc.), and your Engagement Rate.
You can change the date range in top right corner to the last calendar month, any select month, or a custom date range.
The right hand side bar shows you the following average data for the date range selected:
- Engagement Rate
- Link Clicks
- Retweets
- Favorites
- Replies
You can review all this information to track progress and trends on a monthly basis. You can also isolate specific time periods if you ran a campaign or other relevant strategy that you want to track. You can see if there was an unusual spike in engagement or clicks and track down which tweet(s) caused that reaction. This will help you better determine what content to post, when to post, and how to engage on Twitter.
If you go back to the top of the page, you'll notice the top tool bar where you can click on "Followers". This will allow you to see demographic information related to your Twitter followers. Use this information to ensure your audience is who you actually think it is. If your content isn't matching what your audience is looking for, you might need to consider revamping your Twitter content strategy.
If you use Twitter cards in your tweets, you can also go to the "Twitter Cards" tab at the top of the page to get detailed Twitter analytics related specifically to your Twitter cards. This information will allow you to compare against other publishers and provides insight for what works best for your account.
My Results
Like I said at the top, I wanted to see how my Twitter analytics compare with Facebook. I am currently running Facebook studies to see how posts and reach are affected so I have a lot of information to compare. But, to quickly sum it up...
For the month of November, my Tweets had a daily average "reach" (impressions) of 2500 per day (44.5% of my audience). My average engagement rate was 2.2% per day. And I posted an average of 9 tweets a day. I have just over 5600 followers on Twitter. Based on this, my average tweet has a reach of 278 people.
We know that a significant portion of my daily reach will come from people not actually in my list of followers. But still, a reach of nearly 50% is pretty good! And for a quick moving platform like Twitter, I'm happy with 2.2% engagement.
For Facebook in this same time frame, my posts had a daily average reach of 462 per day (24.8% of my audience). My average engagement rate was 9.45% per day. And I posted an average of 2.3 times a day. I have just under 1900 fans on Facebook. Based on this, my average Facebook post has a reach of 201 people.
So, yes, I do get more engagement on Facebook, and with current organic reach debates, the fact that I'm reaching nearly a quarter of my audience daily, I'm happy with that. And to get 10% of my audience engaging with clicks, likes, comments, and shares, is a good position to be in. I am looking to grow that even higher, but with all the constraints Facebook places on pages, I don't know how much higher it will go based on organic traffic alone.
And, I'm actually surprised to see that my average Facebook post has nearly the same reach as my average Tweet. This will definitely keep me thinking about both my Facebook and Twitter strategies...
Thanks so much for the link to the “twitter activity” website! I love how clearly it shows what is going on with my twitter account. You are the best Jenn!
Thanks Kim!! 🙂
So glad that this will be so helpful for you!
Wow, I had no idea about the Twitter analytics url, good to know! Thank you for sharing, I’ve been slacking on my Twitter (focusing on Instagram and Snapchat), and I’m not on Facebook. Time to pick up the pace!
I’m glad this was helpful to you, Paul 🙂 I don’t use Twitter as much as I should either but these analytics remind me why it’s so powerful.
By the way, loving the new layout on the website! I’m on my phone and everything looks great.
Awesome! Thanks 🙂
New blog layout? I LIKE IT!!! Looks ‘cleaner’ and lighter, and good branding in the top bar.
Oh, yes… the article. Very interesting topic: I have written something about this already. Twitter is such a great analytics tool and unfortunately not many people know…
Yes! New layout!! So glad you like it, Antonio. My web designer did a great job of adding so much more to the whole design while giving me what I wanted.
And, glad you liked the article too. So many people don’t know this tool is right there for them to use.
“number of times users saw the tweet” (impressions). How is this determined?
To be perfectly honest, Brian, I don’t know how impressions are calculated. There are a number of 3rd party tools which document how they come up with “potential impressions” or “impressions” and most involve some complicated formula. But I don’t have a clear answer on how the Twitter analytics measure this number.
Hey Brian
Impressions are considered everytime that at least 50% of the ‘box’ containing the tweet is displayed above the fold in the user News Feed. The height of that box is calculated in pixels, and depends on the length of the tweet.
Twitter does not count an additional impression if the user for example scrolls up and down the news feed (making the tweet disappear and reappear again) within the same session.
Hope this helps.
Awesome! Thanks for the info Antonio 🙂
I remember starting with twitter back when they launched and I was pretty eager to gain followers, so I bought them from some suspect splash page that promised me social glory in 30 days (or something like that). At one point, I had about 10,000 followers, but after performing extensive research on my newly procured audience I quickly realized that my ‘follower’ was somewhere between a bot and a person “paid” to be my buddy. Fast forward a half of decade, and I now have 221 organic followers who are generally interested in my tweets even though I technically have a 1.7% engagement rate 5 days into the new year.
Glad to hear you are now focusing on real, organic followers and cultivating a community around them! It can be hard, but it’s so worth it. Keep up the good work!