Twitter has… goodness, Twitter has to be the most over-saturated Social Media news in recent times. Honestly, not a day has gone by since November that there hasn’t been something about Twitter. So, on that note, the Blue Bird app supposedly updated its Tweet view count display, which Chief Twit Elon Musk believes could be a good way to encourage more Twitter users to engage in the Tweet conversation.

Chirp Viewership

Last month, Twitter rolled out its new view counter display on all Tweets, providing extra context as to the exposure and reach of Tweeted content. While some people have found the additional insight to be valuable, many have also criticized the format, with view counts getting top billing, messing up the balance of Tweet metric displays.

Twitter is apparently listening because it recently launched an updated display, with view counts moved to the right of the Tweet metrics listing. Honestly, it’s a simple and improved solution that still displays total tweet impressions without turning the entire UI into a jumbled bunch of week-old spaghetti. Of course, as with everything, there is still a question that doubts its supposed value.

Twitter has tried showing view counts several times in the past. However, those experiments did not yield great results, nor did they help improve Twitter engagement – and why would they? What particular benefit does knowing that either 1 or 1000 people have seen your Tweet? What’s more, what if a thousand people saw it but chose to ignore it? Does that sound like something encouraging? Doubtful.

In any case, Musk seems to think it’s a winner, like many of his suggestions; even if the world would say otherwise, there’s some deep-rooted inclination in Musk since he apparently sees the value that the majority of us just don’t. Maybe we’re not looking at it the way we’re supposed to. Who knows? Regardless, Musk believes that people seeing that their comments are gaining some traction will drive activity.

The Wrap

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, though we’d more likely place our money on it not. Similar to his other experiments, Musk is determined to find out the results for himself, and whether or not they’ll work, as opposed to leaving it all to past assumptions or research. On that, we’ll have to give him credit, his persistence is complemented well by his go-getter attitude and empirical thinking.

It makes sense too, somewhat. In certain contexts, maybe there’s truth to Musk’s claim. If Twitter can get its content recommendations right and implement new monetization or revenue plans that aren’t ad-reliant, then perhaps Tweet view counts would finally mean something. On YouTube, the value of views is easily surmised, but until Twitter can somehow manage video content as well, it’ll require a fair bit of work before views make any significant impact.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3CX34pY