9 Twitter Analytics & Statistics Tools

If you regularly participate on Twitter, finding out how well you're doing compared to other Twitter users can be important (and fun!) There are a number of websites that comb through Twitter accounts to see the kinds of things you tweet about, how often you tweet, who you tweet to, who you follow, who follows you, etc.

These "stats" websites often show you a score, create graphs, and describe your tweeting "style."

Many people are under the perception that these kinds of sites are only important for people who work in marketing, but this isn't necessarily true. If you've got something to share, like an opinion, you probably want to learn ways to best get your ideas across.

You can use the information these sites give in order to improve your tweets to get more followers or to get more of your followers to listen to what you have to say.

TweetStats is one of the few analytic sites that doesn't require users to sign-in via their Twitter or Facebook account, making it perfect for people who are wary of tying their social networking accounts to third-party apps. It's also great if you want to check out others' stats.

In the images to the right, you can see some of the cool details you can pull up just by entering your username on TweetStats.

You can see, in figure 1, the months that I tweet the most, starting from the first few months I was on twitter, December 2008 to present. On the TweetStats website, you can click on any month in the graph and drill down to see more stats specific to that particular month.

In figure 2, you can see that TweetStats gives information on which days and what time of day you tweet the most. It also shows who you @ the most and where you use twitter. According to TweetStats, I go to twitter.com to use twitter the most, followed by using "tweet this" buttons on articles. Also, apparently I tweet mostly on Mondays, by far. It's interesting how much you can learn about your own habits from checking out your own stats types!

Twitter Counter is one of those sites that does require you to tie your twitter account to their app. However, like all stats sites on this list, I have had no adverse effects by having Twitter Counter tied to my account.

Twitter Counter allows you to view information about the number of people who follow you. This includes graphs with a variety of choices of time segments, an arrow showing whether you're seeing an increase or decrease in followers, and a prediction of the number of followers you'll have in X period of time based on your stats.

This site is nice for a quick overview of your popularity on Twitter, but one thing I do not like about the site is that, while the things I showed you are free, there are tiered "better" versions. Also, some of the "free" things on the site are things you really have to pay for with a tweet to promote Twitter Counter. If I really, really want to see whatever information that's paid for in this manner, I'll make the tweet and then delete it after checking out my stats.

It's a nice site, but the features are rather basic for the amount they charge for the tiered version. That said, I'm sure it's incredibly helpful for those who work in fields (marketing) where there's a need to see how successful a particular twitter account is.

Tweet.Grader is brought to you by HubSpot, an awesome site where you can learn a lot about social networking. It is also a part of the Grader.com suite of tools which I absolutely love (and have been using for years), particularly Website. grader.

You don't have to allow access to your Twitter account in order to use this service, so it's awesome for seeing how you stack up against your competition. This site not only shows you some basic details for your account, but where you need improvement (my favorite part about the similar service, website.grader.)

This is a fun little tool that you enter your twitter username into to see how much your Twitter account is worth. TweetValue doesn't explain where they get their information and it gives some strange numbers, so I wouldn't use this information to auction off my Twitter username.

Plus, it gave me something in the $200 range. I don't think anyone would want to buy a Twitter account with my name as the username for even a dollar. That said, the account itself is worth far more to me.

Xefer is similar to TweetStats in that it gives you a graph showing data relating to what days of the the week and what times on each day you tweet the most. This is the only graph that Xefer offers, however you can toggle the graph to see how the times and days you tweet the most change over time.

You do not need to tie your Twitter account to Xefer in order to see your stats, which is a nice thing about this tool.

Mirror. me is new to the Twitter analytics ballgame, but it's still really awesome. This site does not require you to authorize it with Twitter in order to use their service, but, if you do so, you have added functionality to your Mirror.me account.

This site allows you to see your interests in a cloud based on the people you follow. If you're a member, you can see how your interests change over time. I currently receive a weekly newsletter from them which shows me which items in my mirror are rising and which are falling.

The site also has a number of other features in their "Labs" section which allows users to do things like see Google+ reflections, Twitter metrics, Twitter stream, etc.

PeerIndex is a great analytics site that allows users to view an array of different stats including something called the "Topic Fingerprint" which is totally unique to this website. This is a graph that shows what kinds of topics you tweet about.

Users also receive a PeerIndex rank. This rank is made up of what PeerIndex calls "Components." The three Components are Audience, Activity, and Authority. The site also shows you who you tweet to the most, who @s and retweets you, and who you @ and retweet the most. There are also a number of graphs that allows you to quickly compare yourself to twitter users you know.

PeerIndex does require users to tie their Twitter account to the site, but I have found this site to be worth it!

This site is not only useful for Twitter, but is also helpful for Facebook users and, more recently, Klout has added support for Google Plus.

Klout shows users how much influence they have on social networking sites. The site shows what topics users are influential in, who they influence, who influences them, what social networking "style" they have. Klout gives users a score which they get from three categories: True Reach, Amplification, and Network.

Twitter users must tie their account to this 3rd party app, but it's totally worth it. Users who have a high Klout score can receive free perks such as movie tickets, coupons, and more. You can raise your Klout score with Facebook and Google Plus, so if you're not a Twitter fanatic, you can still earn perks.

If you have a Twitter account, or any other social networking account, have fun with some of these cool tools! You can use some or all of these stats sites, but make sure to have fun on Twitter and not worry about whether or not it will improve or hurt your stats.

Do you use stats sites? Which do you use? Please comment below and, of course, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@MelanieShebel.)