Twitter has launched a new app called Engage that’s aimed at social media influencers. If you’re not that into social media, you may not know exactly what in influencer is. So to summarize that term, think of an influencer as someone that drives social media, gets tons of followers, and posts opinions that people want to read (and will share).

Engage is the platform for those influencers to really reach their audience without all the noise of regular Twitter accounts. Are people using it, though? And, do we really need a separate Twitter account for influencers? It all depends on how you look at it.

The Influencer Game

If you work in the social world (or even just in the Internet world), you probably already know what influencers are. These are the people in specific industries that other people want to follow - the trendsetters if you will. Every industry has a few different influencers, and those people simply want to post to their followers. What those people may not want to do is read what other people are writing via Twitter.

What Engage does is get rid of the social noise. Engage cleans up Twitter for influencers so that the only thing standing between them and their followers are a few cleverly worded tweets. Engage is also a good platform to use if you are a celebrity or want to try and become an influencer in your field.

Joining Engage

Twitter Engage is ready to roll and anyone can use the app right now. In fact, it was launched yesterday, so go ahead and sign up if you want to use it. At first glance, Engage simply puts news and tweets from influencers front and center, so you don’t have to scramble around to respond to influencers, have private conversations with those people, and see what is important in your world right away when you open up the app.

While the regular Twitter app makes it possible to connect with influencers (and makes it possible for influencers to connect with followers), you still have to wade through a bunch of other stuff to see what’s happening. Engage just puts that information front and center.

Metrics

Engage also makes it possible to see statistics and data about your followers, so you can see exactly who you are influencing and who you are connecting with. There’s a handy graph that lets you see all of those demographics clearly and simply. You can also see which of your tweets was most popular, how many retweets you’ve gotten, and other data - all within quick and fast reach.

It will be interesting to see where Twitter Engage goes. If I take a closer look at Engage, I can see that this is probably what companies with social media presence wanted from Twitter all along - a way to clearly and precisely track data, see how effective tweets are, and really connect with influencers and influencer audiences. Engage is available right now for iOS only and only in the United States. The Twitter blog does note that Engage will be available elsewhere soon.