If, like us, you were wondering if Twitter was ever going to release analytics, rejoice!
Chris Penn recently noticed a hidden gem that will very likely help you gain insight about what content your students share most on Twitter. Free analytics directly from Twitter.
To access this tool, just click on the top right menu of your Twitter account, and click on Twitter Ads.
If you have never used this feature, Twitter could ask you to sign in again. You will not see the Analytics tab right away. You will need to click on the “Account and Billing” menu, then on “Account Settings”. You will then be sent back to the Twitter Ads page, but this time with the option to “Switch to Advanced”. Click here. You should be able to see the Analytics tab appear next to the Campaigns one.
You can now choose Analytics, and Timeline Activity.
You will have access to:
For each day of the month, the number of mentions, follow, and unfollow
- The number of tweets that were retweeted
- The number of tweets that became faves
- The number of clicks on your tweets in the past month
- Your content by quality rate: Best, Good or All
Unfortunately, we are unable to access the Followers feature described by Penn. Also, it seems that this feature is currently available only to profiles with over 1,000 followers. Could this be the reason why Twitter has not announced the feature publicly?
What it means for your college
As we just mentioned, we still do not have access to some sections of the Timeline Activity. In that sense, this tool is limited for us. But this does not mean that it won’t be useful for your college. It will give your team insight into what your community is really interested in on Twitter. At one glance, you will see what content has engaged your followers and what has had very little or no impact. The “Best” tab will enable you to see what content was most shared in the past month in your community.
Most importantly, coupled with your Google Analytics profile, Twitter Analytics will enable your team to assess the quality of the content you create to make necessary tweaks and continuously bring more traffic online.
What has your experience been with this new tool? Please share!
