Wednesday 31 July 2013

Top 5 Tips : Twitter Analytics

It seems Twitter are finally rolling out analytics to us mere mortals, after being available to verified accounts for some time. Although it they're currently only available in the U.S. some U.K. users can navigate there too, via the "Twitter Ads" option on the dropdown. It's only a matter of time before we can all use them, so you need to brush up on the basics.


So, how to use Twitter analytics? Here's 5 tips to get you started:

1. Don't get too obsessed with stats!
Twitter is, and always will be, about personal connections. Of course we all have a narcissistic interest in how many people are listening to us, but paying too much attention to 'what makes a popular tweet' will mean we end up sounding like an empty, self-serving, brand. Or worse, the PR agency of a brand.

2. Decide what you want to learn from the analytics
If you're just a curious individual that's fine (but be careful of tip 1). If you're a business owner, do you want to find out how to reach more customers? How to get more interaction? Or how to keep people tuned in? It's easy to spend hours looking at analytics and not actually come out with any useful conclusions.

3. Pay attention to 'unfollows'
Trace what you tweeted when your unfollows spiked. If you're building a following it will be useful to know what turns people off. But again, don't get obsessed with not tweeting the "wrong" thing: genuine, honest tweeters will always gain more followers than they lose.

3. Look for patterns
Do certain types of tweets get more RTs and fewer favourites? Are your pictures more popular than vines, or vice versa? Is there a particular hashtag that has worked well for you?

4. Dig Deeper
Twitter's analytcis interface is well designed and easy to use, but to get full value from it for your business account you need to click that 'export' button. You can get a full list of all your tweets, with Retweet, Favourite and Reply numbers next to them. Let the number crunching commence!

5. Look 'around' the figures
A high volume of replies or RT's isn't always a good thing. If you see an unusual spike remember to go and look at the tweet itself and get a feel of the sentiment surrounding it. It could be that this particular post was shared for the wrong reasons or that the replies are asking for more information - all things that can be turned into a positive by an adept Social Media Manager.

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