Is Twitter’s Public View Count Feature a Boon or Bane for Marketers?

Following Twitter’s recent launch of the view count feature, the microblogging platform is now testing new formats to improve its placement and aesthetics.

The all-new view counts are currently being displayed prominently at the left of the tweet display alongside the like and retweet metrics of the post. The release of this feature has drawn a mixed reaction among individual users and businesses alike. Some like it because it instantly shows if a tweet has amassed enough impressions. On the other hand, a few others have found the feature to be "useless" and "unhealthy."

Elon Musk had himself admitted that he was not happy with its placement and ran a poll on the platform to know if users would like to see view counts pushed to the right.

While an official announcement is still awaited, Twitter designer Andrea Conway has posted an updated tweet view format that is likely to be rolled out. According to this new update, the view counts may be displayed upon expanding the tweet. It remains to be seen if the new placement of the view counts will be favoured by Twitter users or not.

Nevertheless, the view count metrics can come in handy for marketers and advertisers. It can provide more clarity to businesses about the visibility and reach of their content and leave less room for error.

Earlier, this feature was tucked away under the Twitter Analytics screen and was available only to the user who had posted a tweet. But now with an upfront view and its probable changes in placement, this development may spur more tweet creation and activity on the platform.

Twitter has brought about a slew of changes to bring back abandoned users and advertisers to its platform. The view count metrics are just one of the anticipated updates, along with long-form videos and priority ranking for blue subscribers.

However, it remains to be seen how this will impact Twitter usage and make the platform spring back into action. As Twitter tries to emulate video platforms such as YouTube, will this move be favorable for marketers?

For now, we expect view count metrics to be of some assistance to marketers in the following ways:

On the other hand, advertisers will now have to be even more strategic and thoughtful about the quality of content they tweet. If a sponsored tweet shows high views but low engagement, there is a possibility that the audience may perceive the brand negatively. Perhaps brands can use this feature to undertake A/B testing of their organic marketing posts to assess what type and format of content works best for their audience and align their sponsored ads accordingly.

However, marketers also have to bear in mind that view counts may only give limited insights into the popularity of content. Since it does not track the unique view count, marketers may nevertheless have to take a look at backend Twitter analytics. Overall, we expect the new public view count feature to propel platform usage to some extent. But it’s not certain how much of an impact this feature will have on marketers.