Better Twitter Analytics Could Be Coming

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Yeah, it’s just speculation at this point based on one comment, but the idea that Twitter could be evaluating adding better metrics around post readership is enough to get some mouths watering, including mine. 

Twitter has always been lacking in a native analytics feature for anyone who’s not an advertiser. A while ago there was some movement toward improvement in this area but nothing really came of it for, again, anyone who wasn’t putting in dollars. That’s why there’s such a rich field of companies and services who pull Twitter numbers and give publishers more information around network growth, engagement and more. 

The most interesting idea around the teased new metrics is that posts would be measured not just by how many people *could* have seen it – the raw number of people who were following the profile at the time the post was published – but how many times that update was loaded into the feeds of individuals. In other words, I may be counted as a potential impression of a tweet because I follow X account. But if I don’t have Tweetdeck open at the time that post was published or within a window of, say, 2 minutes after it was published (meaning it’s reasonable I could scroll through and still see it) then it’s almost guaranteed I didn’t see it. Am I a potential reader? Yes. Am I a likely reader? No, not at that time. 

The comments about better native metrics may just be wishful thinking on one person’s part and a lot of extrapolation on that wishful thinking by myself and other commentators. But it has highlighted the reality that right now Twitter doesn’t offer native metrics for the tool. Those are absolutely needed by companies who may not be advertising but who still have business goals tied to publishing updates meant to reach its followers on that network.