Twitter is a great resource to connect with friends, celebrities, and politicians. Fortunately, the company offers us developers a great API to create applications on top of the platform’s core functions. Here at WingAzul, we developed the ability to sort any account’s tweets based on their date and number of likes, retweets, quote tweets, replies, and impressions.
For those who prefer an visual explanation, here’s a video that we uploaded onto our YouTube channel walking users through each step:
Example #1: How to Find Tweets With Most or Least Likes
To show your approval of a tweet, there is one quintessential action: the Like. As seen in the image below, we sorted US President Joe Biden’s (@JoeBiden) tweets in order of most to least liked.
For the “Sort by” attribute, choose “Likes”, and for the “In Order” attribute, choose “Decreasing (High to Low)”. Lastly, choose the Twitter handle or account ID, with or without the “@” sign, of the account whose tweets you want to sort (it can be any account’s, not just @JoeBiden’s), and then press Submit.
That’s it! The sorted tweets will appear below, with the most liked tweets appearing first and the least liked appearing last. To see the tweets sorted in reverse order, simply scroll up, choose “Increasing (Low to High)” after “In order”, and then press Submit. The tweets will be rearranged.
Example #2: How to Find Most Recent or Oldest Tweets
Sometimes just knowing the proper history of events is all a person wants! We make it effortless to arrange an account’s tweets by date in either reverse chronological (Newest to Oldest) or chronological (Oldest to Newest) order.
Simply select “Date” for “Sort By”. You’ll notice that the content in the parenthesis for the “In Order” dropdown will switch to “(Newest to Oldest)”. This is because dates cannot be quanitified like the other metrics. Regardless, enter the account username or ID you wanted sorted by date and lastly press Submit.
Below we’ve sorted pop star Justin Bieber’s (@justinbieber) tweets in reverse chronological order (most recent to oldest).
Example #3: How to Find Tweets With Most or Least Retweets
While the Like is an indication of approval, the Retweet is for tweets that you really agree with. Fortunately, the process is remarkably similar to that of sorting an account’s likes. Below we’ve sorted Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s (@Jack) tweets in order of highest to lowest number of retweets.
Choose “Retweets” for “Sort by” and “Decreasing (High to Low)” for “In order”. Type in the account username or ID of the account whose tweets you want sorted, and then press submit. The sorted retweets will appear below!
Example #4: How to Find Tweets With the Greatest or Least Number of Quote Tweets
Quote tweets are a unique metric that allow users to retweet a post but have it appear as a quote underneath. They are controversial, especially when public figures quote-tweet comments from smaller accounts. Nevertheless, they remain a major part of the Twitter experience although not as mainstream as the like or retweet.
To sort an account’s tweets by their number of Quote Tweets, choose “Quote Tweets” for “Sort by”. Below we’ve sorted popstar and businesswoman Rihanna’s (@rihanna) tweets by smallest to largest number of Quote Tweets. For those following along, select “Increasing (Low to High)” for “In order”, type in the account handle or ID of the desired account, and then press submit. That’s it!
Example #5: How to Find Tweets With the Most or Least Replies
Replies are an essential part of Twitter, as they give the ability to directly comment on the original tweet. Of course, replies are also part of the dreaded “ratio”, where a tweet generates replies excessive to its numbers of likes and retweets. They can also be turned off at the author’s request.
Whether you’re curious about which tweets were ratioed or had their replies turned off, you can easily find out by using our sort function.
Below we’ve sorted media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s (@Oprah) tweets in order of greatest to smallest number of replies.
Choose the desired metric (“Replies”) for “Sort by” and “Decreasing (High to Low)” for “In order”. Type in the account username or ID of the account whose tweets you want sorted, and then press submit. The tweets ordered by their number of replies will be displayed in the Results panel!
Example #6: How to Find Tweets With the Most or Least Impressions
Impressions are a unique metric that only recently became available. They refer to the number of times a tweet was seen on Twitter and are almost always the largest of the available metrics. Below we sorted the @Twitter account’s tweets by impressions, but this time chose “Increasing (Low to High)” for “In order”.
Drawbacks
The most notable drawback with our Sort Tweets function is that we’re limited to about 3000 of the account’s most recent tweets. This isn’t a limit we enacted but is enforced by Twitter itself. Moreover, if the account you’re searching doesn’t author tweets very often but rather mostly retweets other accounts’ tweets, fewer tweets will show up in the search, since we only include original tweets and exclude retweets of other accounts. Lastly, the sort function will only work for public accounts; users who have turned their profile private will not be able to have their tweets sorted.
Conclusion
Our Sort Tweets function is among the most advanced Twitter searches available today. Other applications don’t offer the full availability of metrics that we do, such as the ability to sort tweets based on impressions. Using our product, you can easily sort any account’s tweets based on their date and number of likes, retweets, quote tweets, replies, and impressions, in either increasing or decreasing order.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach us at hello@wingazul.com or message us on our Twitter page @WingAzulApp.
