When you publish something on social media, you want people to see it. However, it might not be clear where your tweets, retweets, and mentions are going. If that’s the case, this guide should help you make sense of it all.

Who sees your tweets, and where?

See below the types of Twitter content, and how people will see it:

• Regular tweets: Your normal, average tweet. You know that big blue button that says ‘Tweet’ on it? That makes a tweet. You will see these on your profile page and your Home timeline.  It will also appear on the Home timeline of anyone who follows your profile.
• Retweets: When you share a tweet, it’s called making a retweet. Retweets will appear on the Home timeline of anyone who follows your profile. If someone else retweets your tweet, it will appear on the home timeline of all of their followers.
• Mentions: When you want to refer to a Twitter profile, you write ‘@’ in front of their profile name, and they will be mentioned in your tweet. This will appear on your profile page. It will also appear in the mentions and notifications tab of the mentioned profile. And it will appear in their Home timeline if they are following the sender of the tweet.
• Replies: Any tweet that starts with a mention and is a response to an already existing tweet is a reply. This will appear on your profile page. They behave like mentions, so they will appear in the mentions and notifications tab of the mentioned profile and in their Home timeline if they are following the sender.

This is who will see your tweets and where they’ll see them. It may seem confusing at first, but it’s easy to understand once you start doing it yourself. Of course, we can’t guarantee that all these people that get your tweets, retweets, mentions, or replies will see them. Some people will just ignore it or miss it by chance. If you want to maximize how many people see your tweet, you have to find the best times to post first.

Does anyone see your tweets if you have no followers?

Well, also if you do not have any followers on your Twitter profile, your Twitter content can be seen by literally anyone who uses the platform. It takes only finding your Twitter profile and checking what posts appear there. Also, anyone can simply search for a hashtag that you use in your tweets.

So how to make your tweets more popular? Use targeted, relevant hashtags, but try not to choose the ones that are highly popular. Your tweets might get lost in the jungle of other tweets. You can also make a specific hashtag referring to a particular topic, or even a product or service that you offer. Then, try to make some buzz around them.

How to get more data about people who see your tweets?

If you want to gain some more data about your Twitter audience, you can use a social media analytics tool like Sotrender.

With a use of Sotrender and the data that it delivers, you can, for example, track:

• the number of followers and follower growth on your Twitter profile,
• Activity Index – the collective weighted rate of user activities,
• the number of engaged users and how is it changing over time.

Measuring the number of engaged users on a Twitter profile in Sotrender

Read also:

1. When should I tweet on Twitter?
2. What to post on Twitter?
3. Should I promote my Tweets?