Tracking Engagement Metrics on X (Twitter) Without a Premium Subscription: A Guide

Tracking Engagement Metrics on X (Twitter) Without a Premium Subscription: A Guide

With X (formerly Twitter) locking its analytics service behind a paywall, tracking your social media performance manually has become more crucial than ever. This guide will walk you through understanding and calculating essential engagement metrics to help you stay on top of your KPIs for Horizon Europe projects.

 

1. Understanding Key Metrics 

Engagement Metrics: 

  • Likes: Number of likes your posts receive. 

  • Repost: Number of times your posts are shared. 

  • Replies: Number of responses to your posts. 

  • Mentions: Number of times your handle is mentioned in posts. 

 

Impressions

  • View/Impressions: Number of times your posts are displayed on users' timelines. 

 

2. Calculating Engagement 

Total Engagement: 

To calculate total engagement over a specific period: 

  1. Gather Data: Collect data on likes, reposts, replies, mentions, and clicks for each post. 

  1. Sum the Data: Add up all the engagement metrics for each post. 

Formula: Total Engagement = (Likes + Reposts + Replies + Mentions) 

 

Engagement Rate: 

To calculate the engagement rate, which provides a percentage of engagement relative to the number of impressions: 

  1. Calculate Total Engagement: Use the formula above. 

  1. Collect Impressions Data: Gather the total number of impressions for your posts. 

  1. Divide and multiply by 100: 

Formula: Engagement Rate (%) = (Total Engagement / Total Impressions) x 100 

 

3. Calculating Impressions 

Total Impressions: 

To calculate total impressions over a specific period: 

  1. Gather Impressions Data: Collect the number of impressions for each post. 

  1. Sum the Data: Add up all the impressions for each post. 

Formula: Total Impressions = Sum of all Impressions per Post 

 

4. Manual Tracking Example 

Let's say you want to calculate engagement and impressions for the past week: 

1.Gather Data: Track each tweet's engagement metrics and impressions. For simplicity, let's assume you posted five times this week. 

 

Tweet 

Likes 

Retweets 

Replies 

Mentions 

Impressions 

10 

500 

400 

15 

600 

300 

20 

10 

800 

 

 

2.Calculate Total Engagement:  

  • Total Engagement = (10+5+2+1) + (8+3+1+2) + (15+7+3+3) + (5+2+1+1) +(20+10+4+5)  

  • Total Engagement = 18+14+28+9+39  

  • Total Engagement = 108 

 

3.Calculate Total Impressions:  

  • Total Impressions = 500+400+600+300+800  

  • Total Impressions = 2600 

 

4.Calculate Engagement Rate:  

  • Engagement Rate (%) = (108/2600) x 100 

  • Engagement Rate (%) ≈ 4.15% 

 

Accurately tracking your metrics on X can help ease the journey in your Horizon Europe projects (especially during reporting season), particularly now that access to analytics requires a premium account. 

Thank you for reading! How have you adapted to X's changes? Share your tips and experiences in the comments below. 


By submitting your comment, you agree to Europa Media Trainings terms and conditions and privacy policy.