Twitter. X. Whatever you choose to call it, it is still the world’s town square.
With millions of conversations happening every year.
It provides a critical insight into consumer thoughts. But to get those insights, you need X / Twitter analytics tools. Here are our favorites.
Twitter becomes X
In 2023, Twitter rebranded, to become X. However, this hasn’t changed how Twitter analytics work. Platforms such as Talkwalker can still track X data. And you can analyze it alongside analytics data from multiple social channels.
You can learn more about X social listening here.
Formerly known as Twitter
Since Twitter rebranded, users are still struggling to accept the rebrand. In the 12 months following the renaming, there were 4.6 million mentions of phrases like “formerly known as X”. Users don’t want to let go of the name, so in this article, we kept Twitter for nostalgia’s sake.
Mentions of phrases like “formerly known as X” in the 12 months following the Twitter to X rebrand. Talkwalker Social Listening
What are Twitter analytics?
Are your social media messages working? Are users engaging with them? Twitter analytics show you whether consumers are listening, or not. Whether your social media marketing messages are hitting their target.
Using Twitter analytics tools means you'll have access to stats and insights that'll measure your Twitter performance. So you can analyze and boost your impact on Twitter.
Insights include...
- Engagement rate - Twitter posts earning retweets, replies, follows, likes, love
- Type of engagement - retweets or likes - value vs appreciation
- What time of day users are most engaged - clicks, retweets, replies. Find the best time to post
- Which day of the week users are most engaged
- Best posting time to maximize tweet impressions - when most will see a tweet
- Influencers sharing your content
- Hashtag comparisons - which hashtags are performing well
- Average tweet performance for benchmarking - hitting your targets
- Followers' interests - target your content
- Trends - peaks and troughs - causes
- Overview of monthly performance - top tweets, mentions, followers
Why are Twitter analytics important?
The more you know about your performance on Twitter, the better.
By leveraging the social media platform's immense power, you can better understand -
- Your audience
- Your competitors
- Your engagement
- Your conversion rate
- Etc
Then use these valuable insights to increase engagement and ROI.
Using Twitter analytics tools will reveal...
- How many users are seeing your tweets
- If your paid promos are working or bleeding money
- How users are engaging with your tweets
- Which style works - image, GIF, video, long, short - copy the winners
- Your followers - interests, location, gender, language, who your followers follow
Know your followers
You want your content to hit home, but how will you know what to target if you don't know your audience? Age, job title, gender, language, time zone, income. To increase engagement, you need to be creating content that resonates with consumers. That helps them learn new things, solves their pain points, makes them feel good.
You can also target segments of your followers according to their profession, interests, device, behavior, and keywords.
What content works?
Just because you can use 280 characters, doesn't mean you should. There's no limit to how many hashtags you can use, but don't get trigger-happy. Find what works for your brand and your audience.
- Keep tweets short and simple, despite the increased character limitation. Ideal length is 20-40 characters with an image or video.
- Tweets with images get 150% more retweets and increase click-through by 18%
- Tweets with one hashtag are 69% more likely to be retweeted than those with two
- Users are 25% more likely to retweet if the URL is in the middle of a tweet
When should I post?
Tweets posts are the mayflies of the social media world. When tweeting, picking the optimum time can be the difference between going viral, or going down the pan.
There's no best practice for how many times a day to tweet. But, tweets live a short life. Whatever you do, being consistent is important. Seven times on Monday, once on Tuesday - you'll quickly lose followers.
Use Twitter analytics tools to find out what frequency rate works best for your brand.
Check the location/time zone of your followers to identify the best time of day. Tweeting during sleep time is never going to bring much engagement.
Are your ads working?
Don't throw good money after bad. Before running Twitter ad campaigns or boosting popular tweets, you need to understand what works.
Paid social ads built & live. Are they working? Track & measure digital campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels with our feature... Paid Social.
Find what's working, then do it again, and again...
Find your top tweets - most retweets, likes, shares - and understand why they're working so well. Image? GIF? Hashtag?
Okay, let's talk tools...
Paid Twitter analytics tools
Analyzing this huge amount of social media analytics can be a pain in the a*s. Native Twitter analytics may be good, but to do it well, you'll need the best Twitter analytics tools on the market.
To save you from trawling through the thousands of Twitter analytics tools available, I've put together a list of the best tools on the market. I've included views from industry experts to help you with your decision.
Talkwalker - World-leading social listening
Let’s start at the top. Talkwalker is a Twitter Official Partner. This means our social listening has all the Twitter Analytics you could possibly need.
And it’s easy to use. Add your query, and you can quickly find every mention of your chosen topic, brand, or product. This can help…
- Protect your brand by finding (and responding) to negative mentions
- Boost brand success by identifying the topics and trends your audience discuss
- Promote your brand by tracking the most relevant and engaging influencers
- Accelerate your brand, by monitoring your competitors for gaps in the market
Combine your Twitter analytics with other media sources in Talkwalker Social Listening
Best of all, Talkwalker doesn’t just do Twitter Analytics. Your audience is likely engaging across a wide range of channels, so you can’t use Twitter in isolation. Instead, Talkwalker combines a range of data sources, including social media, news, podcasts, and more. This gives you a compete picture of your brand online.
Extra tip. If you find managing your Twitter Analytics a bit overwhelming, don’t underestimate the power of AI. Our Blue Silk AI™ can quickly summarize thousands of mentions, saving you hours of work. Or is you need you own social listening expert on hand, trust Yeti to help you pull insights and get more from the platform.
Hootsuite | Analyze social media platforms
Twitter analytics are great. Being able to put the insights from those analytics into action, instantly - awesome.
Full disclosure, Hootsuite recently acquired Talkwalker. Now you get industry leading social listening and social media management in one platform.
That way, you can pull real time insights from Twitter (and other data sources). And then act on those insights, by quickly making changes to your social strategy.
Hootsuite combines Twitter analytics and social media management for insights and action
For example, you can use analytics to find a new trend on Twitter. Then in a couple of clicks, you can create an on-trend, relevent post. Just watch the engagement roll in.
"If you are looking for a tool that lets you manage all of your social media accounts and presence in a single place, and collaborate as a team on them, then Hootsuite should be at the top of your list to investigate."
"The company keeps investing in enhancements to its platform. Hootsuite just keeps getting better. And that’s not always true with products."
Anita Campbell (@smallbiztrends) | Founder and Publisher of Small Business Trends
Twitter Analytics | Profile data
Twitter Analytics is THE Twitter analytics tool. But is it paid or free? Good question. Twitter analytics is no longer free, but is now included in X Premium.
So it is free but only if you have a paid account. That’s why it’s in this section.
Twitter Analytics provides insights into your own account posts
Twitter Analytics only reveals data about profiles you own, so no competitive intelligence. But the breakdown of month-by-month top-line stats is a great way to track how you’re performing over time.
Click on the "Tweets" tab and you’ll get an in-depth view of how your tweets performed, month on month...
"Being a writer who spends every waking moment flitting between writing, researching and tweeting it’s great to have such an easy and accessible tool.
With Twitter being my biggest outlet for sharing content it’s vital that I can see which posts are well-received and gain the most engagement so that I can more effectively alter my strategy regularly to meet the needs of my readers. With one click of a button you can see all the metrics you need, which is worth its weight in gold.”
Kerry Butters (@kesbutters) - Founder and CEO of markITwrite Digital and a prolific tech and digital marketing writer and influencer
N.B. Kerry passed away in 2016. A tribute to her is here.
"Twitter Analytics gives you fantastic insight into your audience and the content they value most. It provides data on clicks, engagement, impressions and also offers demographic and interest data on your followers so you can get an excellent snapshot of who is connecting with you or your brand."
Laura Click (@lauraclick) - Founder & CEO of Blue Kite Marketing
Trendsmap | Tweet count & top tweets
For an instant overview of what the world's talking about with Trendsmap, a Twitter trends count tool. The tool used to have a free version, but is now subscription-only.
It shows you the most popular hashtags in every country and region, globally and in real-time. Like a Twitter hashtag count. You can then zoom in to find the exact view you need.
Visualize what's posted and where with Trendsmap
Looking for trending hashtags in a specific location? Use the hashtag location map where you'll not only find the most popular hashtags, but users and keywords too.
Features include...
- Hashtag analysis – click on a hashtag in the map for simple analytics that include tweet count and top tweets
- Map zoom feature – you can zoom in/out to check what’s trending in particular location
- Historical hashtag history – check popular hashtags during the last 7 days
Free Twitter analytics tools
Just before I start my list, I can't promise that a tool that's currently free will remain free forever. Most offer free trials, and it's a good place to start.
If you’re a smaller company, start-up, or business, social media listening can still benefit your business. Cheaper or free tools are a great place to start.
Free Social Search | Hashtag tracking
Biased? Of course. Honest? Always.
Talkwalker also has a cracking free tool that offers what you need. Free Social Search is the one I'm going to show you today. What does it do?
- Hashtag tracking - research top hashtags and find the best fit for your content, while keeping an eye on your competitors’ hashtags
- Campaign tracking - identify where your campaign is making an impact. Whether that’s on social media platforms, online news, blogs, or forums. Then allocate your resources accordingly
- Event performance - find real-time insights about your event from overall discussions to the most popular posts
- Brand reputation - uncover key metrics that include mentions, sentiment, engagement, and reach. From the last seven days, or minute-by-minute
- Competitor analysis - compare with your top competitors and the platforms they are using and how
Quickly compare trends and topics with Talkwalker Quick Search
Foller.me | Analyze competitors
Foller.me used to be a Twitter analytics tool that helped you understand what topics your competitors are talking about. Now it finds the social profiles of various people.
Find social media accounts quickly with Foller.me
"Foller.me is an exciting tool that will review a Twitter users profile and latest tweets and put them in “tag clouds” so you review and see which are most popular. This is helpful when you’re growing your community and need the influencers that like your products or services. You can then engage and start a conversation know what that influencers like to talk about and when to engage them."
Shane Barker (@shane_barker) - Digital Strategist and Social Media Consultant, shanebarker.com
Followerwonk | Optimize Twitter campaigns
Followerwonk - now a part of Fedica - lets you analyze any Twitter account. That includes competitors. Find out what's working for them and optimize your Twitter marketing strategy. Identify new influencers in your industry and engage them.
Followeronk provides detailed Twitter account analysis
Features include:
- Compare the followers between two accounts
- Times and locations when an account's followers are active
- Search bios for keywords
- Find the social authority of accounts
- Follower counts
There's a free plan with limited access, plus paid plans with additional features to meet your needs.
Followerwonk data gives you insights that'll help you optimize your social online presence, or increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.
#onemilliontweetmap | Overview of hashtag usage
If you wanted to see how a hashtag spread globally, #onemilliontweetmap was it. The best part about this tool was the level of granularity it gave through intuitive filtering options. The map view was clear and from a visualization standpoint, you could find mentions in real time.
#Onemilliontweetmap followed the journey of tweets across the globe
However, the tool is on pause at this time, so current data isn’t available. I’ve kept it in this list, as it provides an interesting snapshot of Twitter from the past. And can still give you some idea of how people share certain hashtags across the world.
Hopefully, we’ll see a revival of the tool one day.
Discontinued Twitter analytics tools
We’ve included these tools for prosperity (and a little bit of nostalgia).
Twitonomy | Discontinued
This Twitter analytics dashboard had a free and a paid version. Although the page is still live, it appears Twitonomy is discontinued.
The free version of Twitonomy had several awesome features...
- Track your followers - historical data on Twitter stats that monitor the growth of your followers. Whether yesterday, last week, last month. You can also pull insights on your followers and influencers
- Analyze any Twitter profile - analytics on tweets, retweets, mentions, hashtags, replies
- Monitor users, lists, and keywords - watch your favorite users and lists, or anyone using a particular keyword
- Download tweets, mentions, retweets, favorites, and Twitter reports to Excel or PDF
"Twitonomy App is by far one of the most valuable Twitter analytics tools I’ve ever used. It gives you everything you need to analyze what is working and not working. It gives you everything from mentions, replies, lists, most influential users, and even the time that you get the most engagement.
The best part is it allows you to pull all of the data and put it into visual graphs. It analyzes your followers as well so that you can use the data to increase engagement."
Jack Kosakowski - Social selling eBRANDgelist and Regional Sales Manager at @ActOnSoftware, Social Media Advisor for Chill Puck.com
Mentionmapp | Discontinued
Mentionmapp Analytics provided a different, way more visual form of analysis compared to a lot of Twitter analytics tools. There were numbers available, but it's great to be able to see who’s interacting with your tweets. And who’s interacting with the tweets of your top influencers. You could create an influence map of your Twitter feed and those that you interacted with.
"Mentionmapp is an excellent network exploring tool to see how people are interacting and what hashtags they are using. Once logged you can search for a specific Twitter user and then you will see a highlighted map that shows a web on who they are engaging with and what hashtags they are using.
This tool is a great asset when you want to find and follow social influencers in a specific industry. It can help you find a community around your product or service."
Shane Barker (@shane_barker) - Digital Strategist and Social Media Consultant, shanebarker.com
SocialRank | Discontinued
The SocialRank tool pulled in your audience profiles, and then provided analysis to understand how they worked. The insights about your followers helped find, monitor, and engage with the best people on Twitter.
Features included:
- Segment your audience with sorting and filtering
- Create custom lists and export to CSV or PDF
- Find the most influential followers
- Find most engaged followers - frequency of retweets, mentions, replies, likes
- Find best followers - combo of the most influential and most engaged
- Find most followed
- Filter by bio keyword, hashtag, location, activity
“Users can receive monthly reports on how their top 10 followers in each category have changed, as well as set up filters to distinguish between brands and individuals.”
"The combination of swag and influence measurement might remind you of Klout Perks, but again, SocialRank is less concerned with measuring general influence and more with finding the value in the people who already follow you.”
Anthony Ha (@anthonyha) - Author, TechCrunch
A clear picture with Twitter analytics tools
Twitter is a valuable resource for all marketers. And the data produced on Twitter will help you understand the impact that your Twitter activity is having. And, the impact that your competitors are having.
You'll be able to pull out insights that'll give you what you need to improve your online marketing campaigns. To engage more with your followers. To prove ROI. Using these Twitter analytics tools, you're sure you’re never out of the loop.
Talkwalker Social Listening
When it comes to Twitter analytics tools, there isn’t as much choice as there used to be. But Talkwalker still offers comprehensive Twitter analytics.
You can -
- Track in real time any conversation across Twitter/X to find out what has your audience talking
- Dive into audience demographics, for easy segmentation and categorization
- Combine your data with a comprehensive range of sources, to get a complete brand picture
- Use the best AI features to make analysis quicker and easier than ever
To learn more about Social Listening, just click below.
