{"id":33711,"date":"2023-09-25T23:48:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T23:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/?p=33711"},"modified":"2023-09-29T20:49:16","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T20:49:16","slug":"twitter-metrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/blog\/twitter-metrics\/","title":{"rendered":"The 8 Most Important Twitter Metrics and How to Track Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

For nearly two decades, Twitter has been a place where ideas could spread. When you tweet, your thoughts could reach all around the world. And that\u2019s been a boon to social media managers looking for new audiences for their brands.<\/p>\n

But Twitter has been undergoing a few turbulent years with its new ownership and platform changes. According to our Social Media Industry Benchmark Report for 2023<\/a>, posting frequency declined by 20% on Twitter throughout 2022. Surprisingly, while Instagram had a 30% dip in engagement, Twitter\u2019s engagement rates were flat.<\/p>\n

Twitter may be changing, but it doesn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere just yet. With so many changes on the horizon, paying attention to your Twitter strategy is crucial. What worked a few years ago may no longer be the best way to capture your audience\u2019s attention. These Twitter metrics can help you stay on track and continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n

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\n Start analyzing your Twitter metrics with Rival IQ. <\/p>Start your free trial <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Different Types of Twitter Metrics<\/h2>\n

1. Follower Growth<\/h3>\n

Follower growth refers to how many new people started following you over a period of time. You want to track follower growth to ensure that you\u2019re trending upward. Are you gaining more followers than you\u2019re losing?<\/p>\n

2023 has been a tumultuous year for Twitter. According to a Pew Research survey<\/a> taken in spring 2023, 60% of U.S. adults who had used Twitter in the past year said they took a break from the platform. The same survey also found that a quarter of current or recent Twitter users said they didn\u2019t intend to be on the platform in a year. So, perhaps it\u2019s no surprise that follower growth for many is either stagnant or on the decline.<\/p>\n

In a list of some of the top coffee brands in the United States, the only brand that experienced growth since the start of 2023 was Dunkin Donuts<\/a>. The brand gained 21,900 followers, while all other companies lost followers.<\/p>\n

\"Follower<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beneficial to look at follower growth through the lens of your own growth and your competitors\u2019. Dunkin\u2019 may not feel like 21,900 over the course of nine months is worthy of celebration, but when you consider that they were the only major coffee brand experiencing growth, they may see things differently.<\/p>\n

2. Reach<\/h3>\n

Reach refers to the total number of people who see and engage with your post. You might expect that your follower count and reach rate would be equal, but that\u2019s generally not the case. Your followers won\u2019t see all of your tweets, nor will they engage with them all. Your content is competing not only with all of the other content on Twitter but with all of the posts, videos, and Stories on other apps like Instagram and TikTok.<\/p>\n

One of the key takeaways from our industry benchmark report<\/a> was that engagement rates are down on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. One of the biggest reasons why? It\u2019s primarily because organic reach is down. If no one sees your tweet, they can\u2019t interact with it. Organic reach refers to the people who see your post when it\u2019s not paid to be promoted. On many of the top social media apps, like Twitter, more and more promoted content is taking over feeds, making it harder to find the posts from people you\u2019re actually following.<\/p>\n

While you can\u2019t control that reach rates may be declining on Twitter, you still want to take a plummeting reach rate seriously. Tweets are prioritized on users\u2019 feeds based on whether Twitter believes that the tweet will interest them. If you\u2019re seeing continuously low reach rates, it may be a sign that you need to switch up your content because Twitter seems to believe your followers don\u2019t care for it.<\/p>\n

Reach is a private metric on Twitter, but you can do some deducing on Rival IQ to get an idea of what kind of reach your competitor is getting. Perhaps Starbucks<\/a> is your biggest competitor. Their best-performing post of the past 30 days, between August 16 and September 12, was simply a picture of the date August 24 carved into a pumpkin, signaling the start of their fall beverage offerings.<\/p>\n

\"Twitter<\/p>\n

The tweet earned 11,000 likes, 2,740 retweets, and 441 replies. Assuming that some people may have done two of the three or all three actions on the post, the tweet must have reached at least 11,000 people.<\/p>\n

3. Impressions<\/h3>\n

Now, let\u2019s consider the above post in terms of impressions instead of reach. As you can see on our analytics page, the same Starbucks tweet has an estimated impression count of 2.14 million. So, why is there such a huge disparity between the reach and impressions<\/a>?<\/p>\n

These two metrics often get confused with one another, but there\u2019s a distinct difference. While reach refers to the number of people who see and engage with your post, impressions are defined by the number of times your content is seen.<\/p>\n

When you share a tweet on Twitter, your audience may view it multiple times. These impressions might happen unintentionally, but it can also be your fan\u2019s choice to see the content over and over again. Perhaps it\u2019s a video that they want to watch a few times. Or maybe it contains important information that they need to remember. When your content is being viewed repeatedly, it might suggest that you have a highly-invested audience.<\/p>\n

So, while reach is an essential metric to understand whether Twitter thinks your content is valuable, impressions can tell you if your followers and fans themselves think your tweets are meaningful and important. For this reason, it\u2019s essential to track both reach and impressions to help you optimize your content.<\/p>\n

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