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How to use the Authors Tab in Explore

Gain insights into your Twitter Influencers with the Authors Tab

Robert B. avatar
Written by Robert B.
Updated this week

Whereas most of the Explore experience looks at 'what' people are saying, the Authors tab begins to uncover the 'who' behind the conversation. Uncover not only the list of influencers, but also the demographics, top professions, and interests of the people tweeting about the topics and companies most relevant to you.

This tab highlights key information about these Twitter users and allows users to add some or all of the returned handles to an existing Author List. This is a great opportunity to identify who the most important influencers are tweeting about a particular topic of interest.

Users will be able to integrate the Authors tab into their workflow, by easily identifying and adding relevant Twitter influencers into an existing Author List.

Important: At this time, the Authors tab only pulls in Twitter Influencers.


Discovering Authors

The Authors Tab captures the key opinion leaders engaging in the conversation. Each Author profile card will include:

  • Total Follower Count

  • Number of people they are following

  • Total number of Tweets

  • Authority Score: Equation that factors follower count compared to the number of people following them. Score can be impacted by another point based on the total number of tweets, and the frequency of keywords in search results.

Add Authors to an 'Author List'

Add Authors to a list by either selecting all results or individually selecting authors based on your requirements. You can complete the step by clicking the ‘Add to list’ button. You’ll then be prompted to add the authors to an existing list or create a new one.

  • Create a new author list (1) or select an existing list to save to (2)

  • Select ok to save your selection

To add a single author to a list:

  • Select the three dots on the author's profile card

  • Select + Add to list

  • Select the list to save to, or create a new list

  • Select ok to save your selection

💡Pro Tip: Use the filter set to further drill down to narrow in on your results. Example: Looking for Twitter Authors in Norway talking about Solar Power in the last month:

View this help article or a step-by-step guide on creating an Author List.


Author Details & CSV Exports

Each Author profile card will include:

  • Total Follower Count

  • Number of people they are following

  • Total number of Tweets

  • Authority Score: Equation that factors follower count compared to number of people following them. Score can be impacted by another point based on total number of tweets, and frequency of keywords in search results.

Recent Tweet: Highlighting the most recent tweet related to the keywords in the search results

CSV Exports

Export key insights around your Author Lists and gain a better understanding of the individual. Data includes, but are not limited to, Author Reach, Country, Twitter Authority, AVE, Sentiment, and Bio. All downloads will be emailed to the user logged in.


Overview of Each Visualization

Unique Twitter Authors

The 'Unique Twitter Authors' figure represents the number of authors who have tweeted at least once about the term found in your search. If, for example, one author tweets five separate times while incorporating your search term(s), that author will be counted just once against the total number of unique authors.

Meltwater 2021-12-07 at 12.27.25 PM

Twitter Verification

Twitter Verification represents a percentage breakdown of the authors tweeting about your search term who are verified versus not verified. Verified users tend to represent authors with a large following and strong influence. In effect, this figure shows you how much of the conversation is dominated by key opinion leaders versus everyday, normal Twitter users.

Gender Breakdown

The gender breakdown estimates the split between male and female authors. The gender of authors is inferred through our ML-based models that look at data like name, screen name, and profile description.

Meltwater 2021-12-07 at 12.28.35 PM

Age Breakdown

The age breakdown segments authors by age categories. The age categories are 13 to 17, 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, 55-64, and 65+. The age of an author is determined by our ML-models as well, looking at a combination of declarative data and inferred data from the user's profile.

Top Author Location

Top Author Location shows you where the authors are physically located or tweeting when they tweet about your search terms.

Top Professions

The top professions represent the most common occupations of the authors tweeting about your search term. Meltwater generates this information by analyzing and finding any professional terms found within the Twitter user's profile. If your audience includes researchers or academics, you'll know to heighten the sophistication and seriousness of your language. If, when running a search on 'cats', you find a contingent of authors identify as 'rescuers', you'll know to channel this passion and empathy in your messaging.

Meltwater 2021-12-07 at 12.39.55 PM

Top Bio Keywords

Using the public information declared by each user across their profiles, we can run a keyword cloud visualization to show the relative frequency of terms. This will help you find patterns in how your audience thinks, describes, or identifies themselves to the rest of the world. Again, you can use this information and mirror it across your copy, CTAs, and ad-creative.

Meltwater 2021-12-07 at 12.42.13 PM

Top Interests

Of course, audiences don't think of themselves just in terms of their age, race, and jobs. Especially today's digital consumers like to think of themselves in terms of affinities, hobbies, and interests. When looking at their historical Tweets and Re-tweets, Meltwater can surface your audience's top interests. Interests can include Sports, Travel, Science, Movies and TV, and more. We generate these interests by looking at each author's timeline of tweets and re-tweets. Knowing this information can help you identify the unique and shared attributes of a particular audience, and again help you activate and engage in a more meaningful and familiar way. Knowing what you know about their interests, how can you better entertain, educate and inspire your audience?

Meltwater 2021-12-07 at 12.43.38 PM

Top Languages

Lastly, Meltwater will show you the top languages of the authors tweeting about the topic found in your search terms. We generate the language breakdown by determining the predominant language used by the author across their tweets.


Learn more about the widgets within the Overview tab here.

Learn more about the widgets within the Analytics tab here.

Learn more about the widgets within the Twitter Insights tab here.

Thank you for reading. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us via Live Chat!

Team Meltwater

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