Twitter lets you see how many people have seen your tweet
The past few months have been a tumultuous and confusing time for even the most avid Twitter user. Following new CEO Elon Musk’s controversial takeover of the social media platform in late October, Twitter has undergone several feature changes and policy updates. The most recent example of a significant departure from Twitter is the decision to ban what Twitter describes as “free promotion of some social media platforms“.
Although Twitter quickly backtracked on this rule, the policy effectively banned people from sharing links on competing platforms like Mastodon, Facebook or Instagram.
After the acquisition, Musk promised several feature additions to Twitter, including some long-requested ones, such as the ability to write longer posts or edit tweets. In November 2022, Musk also shared his vision for what he called Twitter 2.0, where the platform provides better advertising opportunities for brands, enables end-to-end encryption of DMs and changing the subscription service. paying Blue from Twitter. However, Twitter’s Blue subscription soon ran into problems, after which Twitter removed the feature.
In early December, Musk relaunched Twitter Blue subscriptions for anyone who paid for the service, giving them the option to check the “verified” box and access exclusive features.
Another feature discussed by Musk early on in the Twitter acquisition saga is the allow users to see the number of views of their tweets. Starting December 22, 2022, this feature is rolling out to users worldwide.
Twitter has launched View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video.
Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it seems, because over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, because those are public actions.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022
Everyone can see
On December 22, 2022, some Twitter users have reported seeing a view counter appear on individual tweets. The view counter becomes visible when users click and expand their tweets. On accounts that have received this update, a view counter will appear right next to the “Like” and “Retweet” buttons. Later that day, Musk confirmed that the much-anticipated “view counter” feature was finally available to everyone. He claims that this feature will let users know how “alive” the platform is.
Twitter has had a similar view counter for videos uploaded to the platform for some time. It should be noted, however, that the view counter is different from the “Tweet Analytics” function that has been around for several years. The latter allowed Twitter users to check the performance of their tweets, but it was still accessible with a few clicks and not directly searchable.
Another key difference with the new view counter is that, unlike private scans, the number of views is visible to everyone.
Multiple views
With respect to the important question of what constitutes posting, the company indicates in a new twitter help center page : “Anyone who views your tweet counts as a view, regardless of where they see your tweet (eg Home, Search, Profile, tweets embedded in articles, etc.) or whether or not they follow you. Even an author viewing their own tweet counts as a view“.
He added: “Multiple views may count if you view a tweet more than once, but not all views are unique. For example, you might view a tweet on the web and then on your smartphone, and that would count as two views.. »
Given the uproar Musk has caused since he bought Twitter at the end of October, this new feature seems like the least controversial thing to happen in a while.
