CEO Omer Ginor on Twitter Counter — How the Analytics Service Provides Deep Insight Into Social Media Activity and Performance For 2M+ Users

TL; DR: In 2008, just two years after Twitter’s launch, Twitter Counter became the first third-party tool of its kind to enable users to track their follower count and display it on their websites. Growing alongside the social media giant, Twitter Counter has graduated from its simple — yet groundbreaking — beginnings to provide actionable statistical information that helps businesses and site owners reach ambitious digital marketing goals. Whether used to analyze relevant keywords and hashtags or engage with influential brand ambassadors, the Twitter Counter of today allows users to maximize the impact of their tweets. We recently caught up CEO Omer Ginor to discover what’s trending in the analytics and the social media marketing scene.

In the 11 years since Twitter was founded, the social media behemoth has taken the internet by storm, and, lately, it’s only picking up speed. In the last three months of 2017, the company earned its first quarterly profit — $91M on revenue of $732M — causing stock prices to surge and drawing in advertisers.

For companies like Twitter Counter, a third-party analytics tool built around the popular social networking site, the forecast looks promising. As marketing teams continue to zero in on Twitter and other social media platforms to promote their brands, these statistics services are becoming more crucial than ever.

“Social media is the fastest growing marketing channel, expected to cover 25% of marketing budgets in the next year,” said Twitter Counter CEO Omer Ginor. “Twitter is growing stronger again, especially when you compare it to the popularity of Facebook, which is recently in decline.”

Twitter Counter provides individuals, B2Bs, and businesses of all sizes with in-depth analytics on both their brands and those of competitors. With 360-degree views into essential engagement metrics, users can analyze relevant keywords and hashtags, recognize key influencers, and maximize their marketing budgets to achieve goals efficiently and painlessly.

“If you look at the social media world at large, it’s extremely dynamic and there are so many different marketing tactics and features that pop up on the different platforms,” Omer said. “You need to keep very up to date as to what is being used, what is becoming mainstream, and what needs to be covered by an analytics tool — and you need to be pretty quick.”

Maximize the Impact of Your Tweets With Reliable Engagement Metrics

Twitter Counter was founded in 2008 as an easy, fun way for users to add a follower counter to their websites.

“There was really no way to know or to show the world how many people were following you on Twitter,” Omer said. “That one initial feature became a company that now delivers many features to cover a lot of analytical needs.”

Today, Twitter Counter tracks more than 200 million Twitter accounts and provides analytics to 2 million users.

Omer noted that some users take it upon themselves to retrieve stats from the public API. However, in doing so, they’re often jeopardizing the integrity of their data.

“We cover all of the possible ways to retrieve the data for the times that a specific API endpoint is malfunctioning, which happens all too often,” Omer said. “We provide the redundancy and the standardization of that data.”

The company also enables users to view data from multiple angles. As an example, Omer told us Twitter Counter can introduce not only the level of engagement, but also engagement per follower or per post.

“We excel at providing value in a predictable, consistent format and increasing the views into the data,” he said. “We are taking the load off the customer and doing some of the work for them.”

Analyze Branded Keywords and Hashtags Using Twitter Tracker

Omer describes Twitter Tracker, a feature that enables users to monitor relevant hashtags and keywords, as a “hidden gem” inside Twitter Counter. “It’s a very powerful tool, and it’s underutilized,” Omer said.

But, although Twitter Tracker is a very powerful tool, Omer told us it’s often underutilized. He noted this is surprising considering the feature is particularly useful for measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

“Every time you set up a campaign, make sure there’s a tracker on it so you can see the volume of the mentions, of the keywords, of hashtags — whatever it is you used to identify the campaign,” Omer said.

Enabling marketers to listen in on Twitter conversations can then help them inform their next move. As Omer noted, keywords regularly drop in popularity, and marketers need to be sure to use current and differing language in their posts.

The tool also helps users gauge how they stack up against the competition.

“Say you have a direct competitor; they have their branded keywords or branded hashtags, and you have yours,” Omer said. “You want to see how the usage of theirs evolves over time and how the usage of yours evolves over time to determine whether you need to up your game.”

Form Valuable Relationships with Brand Ambassadors and Influencers

To stay afloat in today’s competitive social media marketing scene, it’s also important to consider influential marketing strategies — and Twitter Counter makes it easy to do so.

“You can figure out who mentions your brand the most at any given period of time, you can see the context in which they mentioned you, and you can dig deeper to see who they are and what their bio is,” Omer said.

Continuing to monitor and nurture those relationships is the next step. And Omer told us periodically delving into your own data is important.

“Compare this quarter to the previous quarter and the previous year to see how your engagement rates have been and whether your tactic is paying off,” he said.“You need to understand those things in order to know where to allocate your resources.”

Companies that outsource their online marketing can use the tool to independently monitor the engagement efforts of third-party agencies.

“For as little as $10 a month [users] can figure out what the agency is working on; who they engage with, if they are tasked with getting new followers; and whether they are followers the brand wants or irrelevant,” Omer said. “This is easy to do with Twitter Counter.”

Social.co: Helping Marketers Keep Tabs on Accounts That Matter Most

To help users further engage with influencers across a spectrum of social media platforms, Twitter Counter recently launched the beta version of its newest product, Social.co.

“Instead of trying to reach new audiences — or even trying to reach your own audience with your own words on your own channel, a lot of marketers are opting to put their words into the posts of a social stream of influencers,” Omer said.

He told us marketers must employ different tools to develop relationships with influencers. Marketers don’t need more acquaintances — they need to get to know brand ambassadors.

That’s where Social.co will come in, helping brands manage tracked accounts, hashtags, keywords, and other metrics across Instagram and Twitter in the short-term, with plans for expansion into other platforms.

“Social.co’s mission is to help marketers achieve their goals with as little effort as possible, and provide more ways to achieve those goals,” Omer said.

The next-generation product will help brands build closer relationships with the influencers and develop streamlined content strategies.

“It’s important to get informed about what really works for an influencer to validate the match, first of all, and then afterward construct a good content strategy for the mutual campaign,” Omer said.