Twitter is reportedly experimenting with a new feature (see this link for a screenshot) that would show users how many people viewed their individual tweets. The view count would be shown underneath each tweet, similar to how Facebook shows the amount of views underneath each Page post.
Advertisers have long had access to these kinds of analytics on Twitter, being able to see how many views their tweets receive while running an advertising campaign. If this experiment is eventually rolled out to all users it would mark the first time Twitter has made those statistics available to everyone.
Twitter has explained before that they work on experiments all the time. They say “it’s rare for a day to go by when we’re not releasing at least one experiment.”
Not all of those experiments get released across the entire platform, “We also experiment with features that may never be released to everyone who uses Twitter. Those experiments are perhaps even more valuable because they help us decide what not to do.”
It’s important for us not to get our hopes up about tweet views just yet, but it sure is worth noting they’re at least testing it. Tweet views would be an extremely useful way for individuals and businesses to measure the true reach of their tweets, something they’ve never been able to do without being a paying advertiser.
Even though the feature hasn’t been released yet, there are mixed feelings about it already. On one hand some are saying it would help encourage others to tweet more if they can see how many people are seeing their tweets. On the other hand, some are saying it could discourage people from using the service if they have hundreds of followers but only a few dozen people actually see what they’re tweeting.
Where do you fall? Do you think it would be encouraging or discouraging to see how many times your tweets have been viewed? Let me know what you think in the comments section.
