Until this week, Twitter’s analytics dashboard was only available to verified users and advertisers, but now the micro-blogging platform has opened its dashboard to all registered users of the service, allowing anyone with a Twitter account to look at the performance of their 140-character missives.
To get access to the service, Twitter users simply need to log in to their account and then visit the Twitter Analytics page. The dashboard shows you a variety of statistics, including information on how many people have “engaged” with your tweets by retweeting or favouriting them, and “impressions” which outlines how many people have seen your tweets, and which of them have been seen by the most people.
Twitter has also catered for data-crunching sorts by allowing users to download the various metrics its analytics dashboard tracks. Whether you’re looking to increase your Twitter reach by refining what and when you tweet, or simply curious as to why some tweets “perform” better than others, Twitter Analytics will give you plenty to think about. Some will see it as a valuable addition to their social media arsenal, while others will doubtless dismiss it as yet another tool to foster digital narcissism.
At the moment the dashboard is only available to users who primarily tweet in English, French, Japanese, and Spanish, and have had an account for at least 14 days. Twitter says it’s working on extending the functionality to all of its users in due course.
The dashboard only begins populating after a user has logged in for the first time, but thereafter the information it displays will update in almost real-time.