Twitter Analytics: Follower Count & Reporting Inconsistencies
-
Our number of followers on Twitter has suddenly dropped (yet not dropped) in a really weird way.
Twitter Analytics shows follower counts in two places: Monthly increases in followers, and then also in the Audience Insights tab, where you can see three months of follower counts mapped in a chart.
Month-to-month, the total number of followers continues to rise.
What’s inconsistent, however, is the total number of aggregate followers shown in the cart. Twitter just dropped our to total count of followers by about 600.
But it’s not like we just suddenly lost 600 followers last month (in fact we gained far more than that), but rather that Twitter seems to have adjusted the aggregate numbers across the board retroactively for all months. So while month-to-month continues to show gains, overall, we still went down.
The only way we would have even noticed this, by the way, is because we have a record of the OLD total follower count that Twitter had previously displayed as recently as last month.
So confusing.
We’re trying to figure out what happened, and the only thing that seems to make sense is that Twitter may have done a huge spam account purge, and instead of making it look like we suddenly lost a lot of followers, they just updated the aggregate total # of followers across all time……?
[For the record, we do not buy followers, but we don’t always do the best job at blocking spam followers when the do follow us either.]
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.
-
Thanks for the clarification!
I've looked at quite a few different Twitter follower tools and ran this by a couple of other people on the community team and I've pretty much come to conclusions #2 or #3 that you mentioned. Unfortunately, there's just not really a clear cut way to figure out what happened.
Sorry I don't have a more definitive answer.
You might want to consider tracking your account in Followerwonk going forward if you aren't already. It's a good way to see if you've lost a bunch of followers, who those followers were, and look at the date to see if you posted something in particular that could have led to a dramatic follower loss. Doesn't really help your current situation, but might help if anything strange happens in the future.
-
Hi Megan,
We would not have noticed any discrepancy either at first glance. Each month, we record numbers from the last day of each month on the graph. The graph only shows the past 3 mos.
Imagine that on April 31, you recorded the following monthly #s from the graph.
February = 3,500
March = 4,000
April = 5,500And then, next month, when you looked at the same interface in Twitter, the numbers were all different.
February = n/a (won't go back that far)
March = 3,200
April = 4,000
May = 4, 500At first you'd think - wait. I recorded 5,500 followers in April, and now in May I have 4,500. Did I lose 1,000 followers?
Nope, because according to Twitter, because the graph still shows growth, and we can see the # of users added in May.
**It's just that for whatever reason, the aggregate #s were all lowered. **All data, across the board, is lower, even though it shows relative growth.
I see a few possibilities here:
1. Our records were wrong.
This is a possibility, but kind of unlikely since we pull the data each month, and we create a separate report for each month (so we have multiple historic record of the numbers being different and higher over time)... But who knows, human error happens.2. Twitter Purged Spam
Maybe they purged a bunch of spam accounts? If so, I would have expected to see a dramatic decrease in followers over one month - but maybe instead, they deleted all record of them, included when they were added, so while overall this lowered numbers, it didn't mess with the monthly growth pattern of legitimate followers.3. Twitter Analytics Bug???
Thanks. It's possible there may not be an answer to this, but it would be nice to know if anyone else has experienced something like this.
-
Whoops! It looks like those attached imgur pics aren't public. Sorry for the hassle! Hopefully one day we'll be able to upload images directly into Q&A questions.
In good news, I was able to login to one of our other Twitter accounts we own and I'm now seeing the same follower graph you're referring to. I'm just not seeing any discrepancies on our account, so any screenshots you can provide would be helpful. Thanks!
-
Hi Megan,
Thanks for the response! Your Interface for Moz is a little bit different from what I see. If I go into Twitter Analytics, there's a link on the menu bar for "Audience".
I added two screenshots under my (brand-new lol) Imgur account (see link below)
Basically, wherever you can find a chart of the past 3 months of Twitter follower numbers - there, it displays your TOTAL number of followers.
What happened to us is that our total number of followers dropped across all 3 months, over all time.
We keep track of the numbers on this page, and when we logged in recently, we were bewildered because none of the numbers for the past 3 months matched up to any of our records. They had all changed, as if adjusted en masse.
So while we have accrued new users month over month, the total numbers are all different, so it's like we lost followers... even though we didn't...
-
Hey Mirabile! My name is Megan and I work on the Moz Community team running our social accounts, including Twitter. I'd love to dive into Twitter Analytics and see if I can figure out what's going on with your follower count for you. I was taking a look at Moz's Twitter Analytics and I was having a hard time finding the follower chart under audience insights. I've attached a screenshot of what the top tabs/sections look like when I go to our audience insights section. Are you seeing the same thing? Can you direct me to the specific spot?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I have two Facebook Pages connected to the same website. Is there a way to tell in Google Analytics which Facebook Page is responsible for what referral traffic?
Can you filter social referrals in Google Analytics to better determine which Facebook Page is driving traffic to your website?
Social Media | | TowerMarketing0 -
Getting Connections to Follow LinkedIn Company Page
I've just started a freelance contract with a client promoting their content over social media, primarily Twitter and LinkedIn. As I've started to manager their accounts, I noticed they have set up both a personal LinkedIn page under the company name as well as a Company Page. The "personal" account has 330 connections but the Company Page only has 17 followers. Has anyone had success with a good strategy for quickly and effectively promoting the Company Page to the personal connections? I'd like to actually migrate the connections over to the Company Page, which should be the primary focus. Thanks for any help.
Social Media | | Nobody15330770827560 -
Google + Follower question
Has anyone noticed a discrepancy with their Google + followers? Yesterday we had over 20 followers in each of our four pages and today each say zero. Thoughts?
Social Media | | PlanetDISH0 -
My Twitter Username was CHANGED by Twitter!
My twitter user name australia was changed by twitter to Australia1_ My original user name has been given to Toursim Australia. I never saw any correspondence about this from Twitter (I may have deleted it), nor from Tourism Australia. I have managed to send 2 related support requests to twitter; Once explaining I couldn't log in - and their reply was; "The email address you're writing from does not match the email on this account. For privacy reasons, we can't offer any more information about the email." Second time that my account was suspended - they replied; "If you're writing in about Australia1_ being suspended, this account is not currently suspended" I don't believe this can be a trademark issue because you cannot trademark a place name. I would love an explanation from twitter- Any tips?
Social Media | | RR5000 -
Personal & Business Google+ Pages - which gives SEO juice?
Hi i set up a personal Google+ page and added a business page for my website www.over50choices.co.uk. The business page is linked to my site, but my personal profile "James Price" has the authorship and my blog, youtube, twitter accounts for over50choices linked to it - do i need to link all these accounts to my Google+ business page to get maximum SEO juice or will my personal page get picked up? Do i need to transfer all the social accounts to my business profille - help!? Thanks James
Social Media | | AshShep11 -
Twitter inbound link not being indexed
Hello Mozzers! I was using open site explorer to investigate inbound links to our company website and also to our competitors. The main difference being is their top links are all coming from twitter - where as ours aren't. Now our twitter account is about 10months old maybe more and it's got the standard setup with a description and the URL. We've also been tweeting with a link directly to our site. Yet no luck? Am I missing something? Thanks, Dan
Social Media | | Sparkstone0 -
Any issues with buying Twitter followers, FB fans, or Youtube subscribers?
I've seen many websites on flippa selling twitter followers, FB fans, or Youtube subscribers. Any caveats about doing so? Thanks.
Social Media | | webtarget0 -
How Do I get Content & Pictures into Thoora Results?
Wondering if any one is having success with getting their content and pictures into Thoora.
Social Media | | bozzie3110