Twitter Has A New iOS Analytics Feature - And I'm Obsessed With It

Twitter recently rolled out a new analytics feature for its iOS app that will allow anyone to check the engagement on any tweet they send. 

You can now see metrics like how many people saw your tweet, clicked its link, expanded it, or viewed your full profile because of it.

Twitter originally introduced these insights to please publishers and advertisers, but now that it's available for the average user. And I'm obsessed.  

If you have an iPhone and don't see it, check to make sure you have the latest version of the app. I first discovered it on Christmas Eve:

Since then, I've really embraced the information overload. I've checked the analytics on every tweet I've published since getting the feature, and even some old ones too. 

Twitter, like most social networks, is narcissistic. You throw your observations, favorite articles, bad jokes, humble-brags, and news nuggets out into the void and just assume someone reads them. Well, you can't just assume anymore. You now know exactly how many people saw and cared about each one.

At first, I couldn't believe how small a percentage of my followers even actually saw each tweet - at times as little as 10%. It's fascinating to see which times of day get more impressions, and how a key retweet will cause a huge spike in your engagement numbers. 

It can be kind of depressing. In some ways, I miss the old Twitter where retweets or favorite were my only measure of a tweet's success, instead of how many people actually clicked the story I shared (less than 10% so far, every time). But I can't stop pressing that big "View Analytics" button all the same.