Have you ever wondered exactly how Twitter users are engaging with your company or group’s tweets? Have you ever needed or wanted to track the ebb and flow of your twitter numbers such as your rate of growth or how active your followers are with your tweets? Well, there is a way for you to find out all this information and more with a new analytic algorithm connected to an application called Twitter Cards.
That are Twitter cards? They are a collection of special HTML codes that you can add on to your website. When your followers comment on or retweet your post that is connected to card it will link back to your webpage. These tags or cards come in 8 varieties that can be used to attach to your tweets. These are the Summary Card, the Summary Card with Large Image, the Photo Card, the Gallery Card, the App Card, App Installs and Deep-Linking, the Player Card, and the Product Card.
What do each of these tags does depends on what type of card you use. The Summary Card is the default and most used card it includes such information as the description, twitter account attribution, title, and thumbnail of that tweet. There is also a Summary Card with Large Image, this card is like the Summary Card but gives you the option to feature a larger image.
The App Card is a Tweet card that helps you provide a profile for an application that you wish you promote or feature. The app Installs and Deep-Linking card is the card that you use as an extension of any app download that happens from your tweets also any deep- linking that you might use. Closely related to these card is the Player Card it creates a tweet sized media player with both video and audio.
The Photo card and Gallery Card are very similar. The Photo Card creates a tweet sized card that links to your pages. The Gallery card gives you the chance to really feature a collection of photos, thus the gallery part of the name. These two Tweet Cards are great for highlighting your products or just let everyone know about the company picnic through these photos. In fact there is a card that is specific to products. This Product Card is used to maximize the effect of the representation of your product content.
All these cards make it possible for Twitter analyze and interpret the information that your tweets collect. They put this information through an algorithm (or in geek speak a mathematical equation that does the interpreting for you). Twitter can then give you great graphic images such as graphs or charts that can give you easy to read information about what impact your tweets are actually having. This is how you learn how to better post and craft your tweets to give you the biggest bang for your buck.
These new cards definitely will change the way we all look at a tweet. By Twitter allowing you to use this great new program they have given you a great new tool to help with your business’ or group’s success. Now it’s your turn – What do you think of this new functionality? Epic win or Fail Whale material?