Using Twitter for Twitter stats

By Steve Keenan

In preparing monthly reports for travel clients on how well their social media is faring, I’m a fan of Twitonomy in gathering data on Twitter.

It gives you a pile of stats for free, including collated figures on the reach of a tweet, graphs and the location of those mentioning you. From that, it’s fairly easy (but a bit laborious) to find out which tweets worked best and how far they travelled.

There are other research sites that give bits for free although, naturally, the best information has to be paid for. We’re always looking for which sites provide the best data, and have recently been playing with Sumall.

As we’re not looking for big brand data, Sumall seems to fit the bill - good data at a reasonable price (from $9 a month), as it’s aimed at small to medium businesses. I receive a daily breakdown which handily gives a breakdown on mention reach (see snapshot, below) - possibly the most important figure you need.

But I must admit that I’ve been overlooking the best source of analytics about Twitter - Twitter itself. I was reminded this week when I received an email from Twitter concerning a personal account and announcing a new Tweet activity dashboard

For some time now, Twitter has been offering free stats to advertisers. But now the company is pushing the message that anyone can access the stats without having to advertise. Here’s the thing: you just have to lodge your credit card details with Twitter first.

I have. And here’s what Twitter is now giving me:

* How much interaction my tweets have achieved
* Impressions, engagement rate, link clicks, RTs, favourites and replies
* Ability to export analytics
* Compare impressions, total engagements and RTs month on month

The screen grab from the top of the page is from these stats. When you open a Twitter business account and enter your credit card information, go to the “Analytics” tab and select “Tweet Activity”.

I don’t dismiss the possibility of using promoted accounts and tweets - Twitter says that 90% of followers you buy will stay with you for six months or more (it’s a subject I wrote about a couple of months ago.)

But I will take advantage of the stats more in preparing reports, while sticking with Twitonomy and learning more about Sumall. You can’t have too much information.