Poynter – A person or organization’s social media account reveals two layers of information – “The first is, obviously, the contents of the posts themselves. The second — much harder to obtain at a glance — is the structure and patterns contained within those messages. The latter can often enhance or, more common than you’d think, negate the former. A football star, for example, may say that he’s working hard and sleeping well and focusing on getting prepped for The Big Game. But a quick analysis of his Twitter account may reveal that he’s tweeting at all hours of the day and night (including during practice) about a variety of topics that have nothing to do with his team. Normally, this bird’s eye view (I know, cliché, but I can’t resist a Twitter pun) of information is interred in Twitter’s API, available only to those adept at coding and analysis, or to those willing to navigate the myriad tools that claim to be the best at extracting useful information from the site. But data analyst Luca Hammer just relaunched his Account Analysis tool, a longtime favorite of mine, to make it even easier to explore Twitter accounts on macro and micro scales.

Account Analysis (sign-in required, pro plans optional) uncloaks a ton of great information about any public Twitter account, including daily rhythms; frequency of tweets by specific dates and days of the week; and data about languages, interfaces, most common URLs shared and more. I like to tell people that we should look at digital tools as we do physical tools in our toolboxes at home: ready and available when you need them, out of the way when you don’t. It’s appropriate, then, that Account Analysis comes from a man whose last name is Hammer — probably the most useful tool there is…”