Alec MacGillis engagement report
@AlecMacGillis - 80K followers on X
Measured over 13 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 10, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 98 interactions against 80K followers, an engagement rate of 0.123%. Measured over 13 original posts, its engagement rate beats 52% of 20,444 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 15K times each, and 0.639% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 19.3% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2.3 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 20% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Monday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 13 posts sampled, 54% carry an image or video, 23% are part of a thread and 38% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 3.4K interactions, about 35x its own typical post.
Measured over 13 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 10, 2026.
Compared with accounts its own size
Alec MacGillis's engagement rate beats 52% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (20,444 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 6 of 10)). A percentile is spread evenly by construction, so 50 really is the middle of that group and 90 really is its top tenth.
On engagement per impression rather than per follower it beats 28% of the same group. When those two numbers disagree, the gap is about how far its posts travel rather than how people react to them.
Where this sits in the catalog
At 0.123%, Alec MacGillis sits above the 25th percentile of the 205,881 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the below the median band, which runs 0.024% to 0.143%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.004% |
| 25th percentile | 0.024% |
| 50th percentile | 0.143% |
| 75th percentile | 0.68% |
| 90th percentile | 2.56% |
| 99th percentile | 82.4% |
This ruler is the whole measured catalog, not a size-matched group: it shows where the raw rate falls across every account we can measure, all of which are large. For a like-for-like comparison, read the size-band percentile above instead. See how the bands are built
Posting timing
This account posts most often around 13:00 UTC, and Monday is its busiest day of the week. The bars below are the catalog-wide pattern, with this account's own busiest slot marked. They do not show how this account performs at each hour: we keep one aggregate per account, not one per hour, so that measurement does not exist in our data.
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | -1% | 89K |
| 01:00 UTC | -2% | 90K |
| 02:00 UTC | -3% | 88K |
| 03:00 UTC | -4% | 94K |
| 04:00 UTC | -5% | 76K |
| 05:00 UTC | -4% | 75K |
| 06:00 UTC | -5% | 86K |
| 07:00 UTC | -5% | 93K |
| 08:00 UTC | -4% | 108K |
| 09:00 UTC | -4% | 124K |
| 10:00 UTC | -3% | 129K |
| 11:00 UTC | -3% | 141K |
| 12:00 UTC | -3% | 154K |
| 13:00 UTC | -3% | 167K |
| 14:00 UTC | -4% | 173K |
| 15:00 UTC | -2% | 176K |
| 16:00 UTC | -3% | 171K |
| 17:00 UTC | -3% | 159K |
| 18:00 UTC | -2% | 149K |
| 19:00 UTC | -2% | 141K |
| 20:00 UTC | -1% | 131K |
| 21:00 UTC | 0% | 116K |
| 22:00 UTC | -2% | 100K |
| 23:00 UTC | -1% | 90K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +5% | 393K |
| Monday | +1% | 483K |
| Tuesday | -2% | 520K |
| Wednesday | -3% | 472K |
| Thursday | -2% | 430K |
| Friday | -3% | 447K |
| Saturday | +2% | 393K |
Formats this account uses
Its own posting mix on the left, and what each of those formats does across every account we track on the right. Only formats where the effect clears our publish test appear here, so an empty row is a format we could not measure rather than one that does nothing.
| Format | This account | Catalog effect | 95% interval | Accounts behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image or video | 54% of posts | +111% | +108% to +115% | 34K |
| Outbound link | 38% of posts | -41% | -42% to -40% | 32K |
| Typical length | - | no effect | -2% to -1% | 42K |
- 54% of this account's sampled posts carry an image or video. Across the catalog, posts with an image or video run 111% above the same accounts' other posts.
- 38% of its posts carry a link off X. Across the catalog, posts with an outbound link run 41% below the same accounts' other posts.
- Its average post runs 231 characters, which falls in the 180 - 280 characters band. Across the catalog, posts of 180 to 280 characters match the same accounts' other posts almost exactly.
These are catalog-wide differences applied to this account's own posting mix, not a measurement of how each format performs for this account specifically. We keep one median per account, not one per format per account, so the second thing is not something this data can tell you.
Best tweets
- Sep 4, 202635x their median
Probably my favorite one hit wonder from the 90's. "Low" by Cracker https://t.co/KomI2WmCop
- Oct 5, 202627x their median
Dodgers fans left a 2-run postseason game in the 8th inning en masse https://t.co/jTJLYtV765
- Oct 7, 20265.6x their median
Just heard from a friend about a woman having a seizure on Capitol Hill. According to the account shared with me, someone called DC 911 (@OUC_DC), called again, got put on hold, and was told an ambulance wasn’t coming. Someone then ran to the Capitol Building to get help. Why should anyone have to run down the street for help after calling 911? We already lost William Ostertag after DC 911 delayed sending paramedics. When will DC fix this? When will @MayorBowser fire Heather McGaffin and demand that the Office of Unified Communications answer calls, dispatch help promptly, and account for its failures? I’m livid. Our community deserves a 911 system we can trust with our lives. @STATter911
- Oct 7, 20262.9x their median
BEZOS: What I'd say about AI, because of the productivity, you're not going to need have to have a two-earner household. You'll have a labor shortage. https://t.co/W43xr8WKgT
- Oct 5, 20262.8x their median
Apart from all the other craziness in this interview in which Rees-Mogg basically does to Tucker what Tucker did to Ted Cruz way back when: These guys are the same age, 57. https://t.co/Cbu6E1WixL
- Sep 3, 20262.2x their median
153 people signed the much-needed Harper's Letter on Justice and Open Debate. Six are now dead. Todd Gitlin, Drucilla Cornell, Martin Amis, Khaled Khalifa, Helen Vendler, and now... Rest in peace, Gloria Steinem. You done good. https://t.co/veX8wHG7Vn
- Oct 8, 20262.2x their median
Interesting to see @JDVance today zeroing in on the charade that I wrote about for @propublica last year, how tech giants run obscure print classified ads for jobs they already have an H-1b visa holder doing, as part of the dysfunctional process to get that worker a green card. https://t.co/uIfp2PJxp1
- Oct 9, 20261.9x their median
New in Science: we randomized phone-free classrooms for 16,000+ students across 10 institutions in Odisha, India. Students deposited phones in a box at the start of each class, for a full semester. https://t.co/4qRSgMnWxm
- Sep 5, 2026
“It’s absurd we live in societies that take people btwn 18-22, when they're most physically capable of contributing to our nations and tell them, ‘Go away for 4 yrs, read & learn & have conversations.' I want students to be aware what an incredible privilege that is.” https://t.co/1Awn5tHpde
- Sep 3, 2026
Always read the FT letters to the editor, especially the ones at far bottom right. They don't disappoint. https://t.co/E6rYoSYQZT
Ranked by total interactions across everything we have tracked for this account, which is a longer history than the 30-day window the rates above use. The multiple compares each post to this account's own median.
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Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 98 interactions against 80K followers, an engagement rate of 0.123%. Measured over 13 original posts, its engagement rate beats 52% of 20,444 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 15K times each, and 0.639% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 19.3% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2.3 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 20% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Monday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 13 posts sampled, 54% carry an image or video, 23% are part of a thread and 38% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 3.4K interactions, about 35x its own typical post.
- What is Alec MacGillis's engagement rate on X?
- Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) has an engagement rate of 0.123%, based on the median interactions across 13 original posts from the last 30 days against 79,600 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At 0.123%, Alec MacGillis sits above the 25th percentile of the 205,881 accounts in this comparison. Those comparison accounts are all large ones, because our scanning cadence is weighted towards big accounts, so this is a ranking among peers of similar scale rather than a ranking across X.
- Does @AlecMacGillis have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 52% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (20,444 accounts), which puts it in the middle of its size range group. Ranking inside a size band matters because engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a raw rate would mostly re-measure the follower count. It is a starting point for a look at follower quality, not a verdict on it.
- When does @AlecMacGillis post?
- Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Monday is its busiest day, at roughly 2.27 posts per day across the measured window.