In my effort to learn more about social media I found this awesome service provided by
TwitSprout.  They are currently in beta (as are we for Offti.me Cribbage), and quite honestly I’m really excited about what they have to offer.  They sent me this link today to my Twitter Account Report, feel free to check out it.

I really love the layout and color choices.  It makes the report easy on the eyes and easy to digest, upon review .  However beautiful the page, it didn’t detract from my poor statistics, which were entirely NOT the fault of this awesome service.  So starting from the upper left corner I’ll be checking and reviewing things in a normal western left to right style.  

It’s nice to know about their custom branded dashboards and other jazz, and I like how they made it less intrusive but still available.  Kudos to TwitSprout for promoting without detracting from their services.  

I LOVE that the information is exportable.  That is fantastic.  Allowing easy access to tweet about it and make comments about possible errors is also great.  The only thing I might mention is the positioning.  Some of the spacing seems a bit off.  Also, having the Twitter ‘Tweet’ button in between both is a little detracting.  I might suggest moving that line to the top, and then ‘Excel file’, then the ‘Something looks strange?’ positioned at the very bottom.

The main header is great, but the @ symbol is rather distracting (despite it being a twitter name).  Perhaps sizing it down a bit?  Another thought would be to include the Twitter Icon for your account on that page, next to your username.  It’s something I would enjoy seeing, mainly because I love my little Android in a dress. :)  The next section is useful and is located well on the page.  The ‘Follower Growth/Day’ graph is set up nicely, but doesn’t provide much information for those just starting out with low follower totals.   

The next section including growth rate, percentage declining, follower to friend ratio and influence indicator are all interesting and well set up.  It might be nice to have a link to your description (or something else, a float over with an information pop up window perhaps), for those unfamiliar with how you assess it.  I was able to easily find it on your blog but I have this image of someone adding your report to their report for their boss.  I can see their boss wanting to know where the information came from and having easy access to that would be a great addition I think.

Historical Account Growth: now this information will be awesome to check out as time goes on.  Some of the positioning on my page seems a bit off, more specifically that the borders and spacing seem a bit cramped.  It would be nice to have the original view of this data show from original sign up date to current day.  Making this data adjustable would also be great, however I hear that custom date ranges are perhaps in the works already and thus it should be available sometime in the future.  

I really like seeing how my follower rates change based on the hour in the day.  Currently the graph provided is a little difficult to follow at first.  I understand the information it’s providing, but with the days listed and color coded it makes reading a little more complicated than it should be.  That is especially in consideration with the way the rest of the information is displayed.  Reformatting into a different graph context, or something else entirely?  Separating the information might help with this.  Perhaps list the increase/decrease of followers dependent upon time of day in one graph and then list overall trends per day in a separate section/graph.  I find the hourly twitter follower conversions to be really interesting but still find the color coding of the days to be distracting.  Lastly, the daily tweets, works great and looks great.  Nothing else to be said there.

Having two different links to the same page at the bottom of the screen seems a little like overkill but I understand what’s being done.  They’re making sure users connect to one of the common statements shown, and still get to the one page used for such feedback.  However it might be better to combine it by listing at the bottom, “Love our fresh approach to Twitter metrics? Write a review, or tell us what you think at oneforty.  What are you waiting for?”.  

If TwitSprout decides to provide a manipulable overview like Google Analytics later one, I think they should  offer the option of weekly (daily or even monthly) report generation.  It’s something businesses would be willing to pay for, and a valuable option to have when reviewing data sets.

A question asked by TwitSprout in one of their blogs was: Would you like to see Klout score in your growth report?  Why yes, yes I would.  I think it might also be interesting to gather data regarding the amount of mentions you make (interactions within the community), as well as the amount of your tweets that are retweeted.  I think both of those stats would be really interesting to watch so one could track their influence on follower counts, etc.  

I wish that Google Analytics offered an overview as easy to digest as the one provided by TwitSprout.  It’s set up in such a great manner that it makes reviewing the data just easy.  I look forward to seeing future updates from these guys and I look forward to seeing them grow.  Best of luck to TwitSprout from FlamingLunchbox!