Twitter Analytics is now offering users more tools than ever before to manage, organize and analyze their tweets and followers. Their latest feature release, Audience Insights, is designed to help users understand the demographics on Twitter as a whole as well as their own followers.

Audience Insights provides small business owners with valuable information they can use in their social media campaigns. It can be found and explored within the Ads page on Twitter.  To access this feature, click on ‘Ads’, then under ‘Analytics’, select the Audience Insights button.

How Twitter Analytics Works

• Looking at all Twitter users

Once you open Audience Insights, you’re going to see a dashboard like this or one similar to it since it’s continually being updated.

The Twitter Overview dashboard displays basic demographic information about users in general including their favorite interests, net worth, marital status, household income, education, buying styles and the wireless carrier they use. If you click one of the categories, you’ll be able to drill down further into the statistics.

• Zoning in on your analytics reports for  followers

While it’s interesting to learn about the general population of Twitter users, it’s more important to understand your audience. If you click “Your Followers” next to the search bar, you can research your Twitter followers’ interests, locations, and genders, as seen here:

• Learning about your organic followers

Under the “Your Organic Followers” tab, Twitter analytics shows you these users’ country, region, languages spoken, gender, interests, favorite TV genres and mobile footprint, as seen here:

Another feature of Audience Insights gives you the ability to compare the All Twitter Users, Your Followers, and Your Organic Audience stats with one another. For example, you could look at how All Twitter Users size upas to Your Organic Audience, as shown here:

How Audience Insights Can Help You

Big companies often pay third-party companies major bucks to collect statistics like this, but now you have access to it right in your Twitter Analytics account.

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Statistics are great, but how do you use them? Good question.

If you understand your customers, you can use that information to attract more. With the new metrics available you can pinpoint exactly who your audience is, and what they’d like to see. You can make smart content choices based on the new metrics. Here’s how to turn statistics into an actionable plan:

• Appeal to your followers with your content

Let’s say you want to connect with your customers based on their interests. You see that the number one interest among them is technology. Knowing this, you can post more about technology and retweet influencers in the tech industry.

On the flip side, a restaurant owner could learn that followers are interested in business news and food. It could surprise you to learn that your audience craves business headlines. With this information, you can start sharing news in conjunction with pictures of menu items.

• Post content your organic followers will enjoy

When you click on the mobile footprint tab under the “Your Organic Audience” section, you may find that most of these users log on with Android devices. Knowing that, you’d want to make sure the content you post is responsive-friendly, so it renders properly on Android smartphones.

Aren’t sure if your emails look right on Androids? Use an email preview tool like Litmus to see how your email looks on various devices before you send it out.

• Attracting followers from the general Twitter community 

If one of your initiatives is to appeal more to a general audience or Twitter users as a whole, the overview section of the “All Twitter Users” tab will help you immensely. Consider incorporating funny memes into your feed that relate to your small business. For example, you could make a meme like this one from “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,”, or something else very recognizable, and personalize it for your own business:

Use a tool like MemeGenerator.net to create, save, and post to your feed.

Final thoughts

Audience Insights provides new, specific details about your followers that can help you post information they will love. For small businesses that are lacking data about their customer base, Audience Insights is the perfect platform to utilize.

Remember though – this information only describes your Twitter followers, which doesn’t necessarily mean it paints a clear picture of your entire customer base. Use the information to make smart content choices and implement changes on a small scale to ensure success.

Have you used Audience Insights before? Share your experience with us in the social comments.

Kylie Jane Wakefield is a freelance writer and content creator in Los Angeles. She’s written for NewsCred, CMO.com, Forbes, Tablet Magazine, and The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.

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