Ranting out your views as well as sharing things from the plot of the book you're reading to the taste of the food you're preparing on social media can make you feel good but it certainly feels better knowing that people actually read your posts.
If you're a Twitter user, it may soon be possible for you to know whether people read your posts or nobody bothered to check out what your tweet is all about as the social media company is testing a new feature that allows its regular users to know how many people viewed their tweets.
A similar functionality has been in use on Twitter for some time but the data can only be accessed by the company's advertisers. Twitter's analytics particularly gives advertisers the ability to track the number of impressions, retweets, and clicks that their ads receive as well as gain insights on the behavior and growth of their followers, which could help them come up with more effective advertising campaigns.
Twitter appears to be testing a similar feature for everyday users and this allows them to see how many people have viewed their tweets. The feature was not rolled out to everyone but several Twitter users have reported of seeing view counts appearing in their posts. The page views also currently appear only to users accessing their Twitter account through the official iOS app.
Giving its users an idea how many views their tweets generate is apparently an effort on the part of Twitter to encourage people to tweet more. As the service provides users more information about which of their posts gets more page views, they get an idea what particular topics and tweets interest their followers which could lead them to posting more engaging tweets.
The feature, however, is a double-edged sword as some users who realize that nobody actually reads their posts may be discouraged to tweet. Twitter user Lydia J, who tipped off The Verge about Twitter's new experimental feature admitted that the view count is off putting for her. "That just gives me anxiety now," she said."Like, 'Oh, well that tweet sucked. It got zero views. I'm just going to step into traffic."
