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Elon Musk announced today that Twitter will now display view counts on tweets, giving users more insight into the reach of other users’ content.
Twitter’s tweet view count, otherwise known as impressions, was previously only available to the account that published the tweet.
The exception, as Musk notes, are videos, which have traditionally displayed a view count.
Twitter is rolling out 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 may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022
A tweet’s view count will be displayed under the main content and will update in real time as the tweet is viewed.
The decision to make tweet impressions public appears to be motivated by the idea that it will make Twitter look more active.
Tweet view counts will give outside observers a better understanding of the potential reach and impact content can have on Twitter. In Musk’s view, this could encourage more people to join and participate on Twitter.
For brands and businesses, view counts will be a helpful way to measure the reach and engagement of sponsored content on the platform.
Knowing how many impressions other peoples’ tweets get can also help businesses identify genuine influencers in their niche, as engagement numbers don’t tell the whole story.
As others have already pointed out, public view counts can potentially expose accounts that artificially inflate their engagement and follower numbers.
If a celebrity or “journalist” has 2 million followers and barely gets any views on their tweets because they purchased 1.9 million fake followers in order to appear to be A-List … 😲
This will expose lots of fake followers purchased by so called media stars and celebs. 🤣 https://t.co/XdMuapiPrH
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) December 22, 2022
In time we’ll come to know who genuinely has an audience on Twitter and who has a large percentage of inactive followers.
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