Twitter Analytics from Avinash Kaushik

In a recent interview with Dr. Ralph Wilson, Avinash Kaushik shared some of the metrics he likes to analyze for Twitter. These Twitter analytics include:

• Number of followers over time
• Number of retweets (RTs) over time
• Number of clicks on tweeted links
• Most popular content (above-average clicks)

The last point is a critical one. Avinash contends that if you determine the number of clicks that an average tweeted link gets on your profile, you can identify and analyze over-performing content that is more popular with your Twitter followers. Of course, you can “learn from your failures” by analyzing under-performering content too. Either way, you have actionable intelligence for creating successful content/campaigns in the future.

While Avinash makes a great point, your tweet popularity only provides half the picture. Click and RT metrics indicate how you can best use 140 characters to effectively promote your content. But once a piece of content becomes popular, you really have to look at site-side metrics to see if the content is helping you achieve your business objectives. You can do this by segmenting Twitter traffic in your analytics tool and measuring conversion/engagement from that specific source (which I’m sure Avinash is already doing as well).