How to get the most from Twitter Analytics

‘Know Thy Impact’ is a phrase that teachers are familiar with thanks to John Hattie.  Reaching teachers through social media requires the same knowledge - how well is your Twitter account performing?  Because you are targeting such a niche audience, you are already at an advantage compared to other organisations - you can hone in on what makes your followers tick.  Our guide to Twitter Analytics will show you how to use the tools at your disposal, making your organisation’s Twitter feed the one to watch.  

#1 Choose your tools

There are many tools that allow you to analyse your performance on Twitter.  Some carry a subscription fee, but the majority are free.  In most cases, we recommend using Twitter’s own free analytics platform.   If you manage multiple Twitter accounts, it's worth considering another service. A few of the options include:

• Hootsuite
• Zoho Social Analytics
• Followerwonk

#2 Look at your tweets in Analytics

Anyone with a Twitter account can access the free analytics tool.  Just go to https://analytics.twitter.com and sign in.  There are seven tabs at the top of the page:

• Home
• Tweets
• Audiences
• Twitter Cards
• Videos
• Events
• Tools

Clicking on 'Tweets' will show you a summary of your performance on Twitter.  This includes how many tweets you posted per day, how many clicks and retweets you received, and your engagement rate over the last 28 days.  You can see further back by clicking on the calendar button and selecting the month and year you wish to see. The 28-day review is great as it will encourage you to review your account performance on a monthly basis.  That said, since you are reaching out to schools and teachers, you may find it useful to look at your tweets over a termly or yearly basis to identify any patterns at certain times in the academic year.  School terms typically run as follows:

• Autumn: September to December
• Spring: January to April
• Summer: May to July

For each tweet you can see the following information:

• Text of the tweet
• Time it was posted
• Number of impressions (times your tweet was displayed in someone’s feed)
• Number of engagements (retweets, likes, user profile clicks, URL clicks, hashtag clicks)

You can calculate the engagement rate of a tweet using the following formula:

(engagements / impressions) x 100 = engagement rate

Working to improve your engagement rate is a far better goal than focusing on followers.  It’s better to have 100 highly engaged followers than to have 1,000 followers who never engage with your material.  

#3 Identify the features of your best tweets

Once you’ve looked at the data in more detail, it’s time to start looking for some patterns.  What did your most successful tweets have in common?  Were they all posted at a similar time of day?  Did they all include an image?  What were the links you included?  Was there a particular hashtag which generated more engagement? Make a note of your findings and share it with the rest of your team.  

#4 Weed out your worst tweets

 You should repeat the same process to discover what has not worked with your audience so you don’t make the same mistakes again. In particular, look for times of day where engagement was poor.  Look at hashtags too - are you making use of a hashtag that is underperforming?

#5 Get to know your audience

The 'Audiences' tab at the top of the page will show you vital information about your followers, allowing you to consider their demographics when planning future content.   The interests table will tell you if you are successfully reaching your target audience.  Is ‘education’ an interest for a majority of your followers?  If not, then perhaps your content is reaching the wrong people?   If you’ve hit the nail on the head with ‘education’, then how can you finish the job?  Are you targeting computing teachers?  Then technology should be highly rated.  English teachers?  Then literature should be high up on the list.  If you are targeting school leaders, then we have found that their interests tend to include:

• Government
• Business and News
• Politics and Current Events

Another way to check if you have missed out on potential followers is to click on the ‘add comparison audience’ link on the top left-hand side of the screen.  This will show you a direct comparison of your audience’s interests compared to the entire base of Twitter users.  This will help you to zoom in on what sets your audience apart from other users, and will also show you if you are failing to reach potential customers. Unfortunately, you can’t just type in the name of a competitor, so if this is important to you, then it’s worth investing in a tool such as Followerwonk.  

#6 Respond

Once you have got this information, you need to respond quickly by adjusting your content and scheduling.  You may find you just need to tweak a few things.  Try removing or adding certain hashtags, or changing tack with your timing.   If your analysis has revealed wider gaps than you expected, don’t panic!  You now have all the information you need to change your strategy and reach the teachers and schools who stand to benefit from what your organisation has to offer.  Don’t get overexcited and make broad sweeping changes - make one change and then wait to measure the impact.  How can you ‘Know Thy Impact’ if you changed everything in one go?   Why not start by reading our blog post explaining the recipe for the perfect tweet?