Tom Nichols engagement report
@RadioFreeTom - 677K followers on X
Measured over 21 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 2, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 500 interactions against 677K followers, an engagement rate of 0.074%. Measured over 21 original posts, its engagement rate beats 65% of 3,882 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 40K times each, and 1.26% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 5.85% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 4.1 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 27% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 01:00 UTC, and Tuesday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 21 posts sampled, 29% carry an image or video and 52% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 14K interactions, about 29x its own typical post.
Measured over 21 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 2, 2026.
Compared with accounts its own size
Tom Nichols's engagement rate beats 65% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (3,882 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 8 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 59% 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 0.074%, Tom Nichols sits above the 25th percentile of the 37,582 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the below the median band, which runs 0.012% to 0.081%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.002% |
| 25th percentile | 0.012% |
| 50th percentile | 0.081% |
| 75th percentile | 0.439% |
| 90th percentile | 2.10% |
| 99th percentile | 158.1% |
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 01:00 UTC, and Tuesday 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% | 52K |
| 01:00 UTC | -2% | 53K |
| 02:00 UTC | -3% | 51K |
| 03:00 UTC | -4% | 55K |
| 04:00 UTC | -6% | 44K |
| 05:00 UTC | -4% | 43K |
| 06:00 UTC | -4% | 50K |
| 07:00 UTC | -5% | 54K |
| 08:00 UTC | -4% | 62K |
| 09:00 UTC | -3% | 72K |
| 10:00 UTC | -2% | 74K |
| 11:00 UTC | -3% | 81K |
| 12:00 UTC | -2% | 89K |
| 13:00 UTC | -2% | 98K |
| 14:00 UTC | -4% | 101K |
| 15:00 UTC | -2% | 104K |
| 16:00 UTC | -3% | 102K |
| 17:00 UTC | -3% | 94K |
| 18:00 UTC | -1% | 88K |
| 19:00 UTC | -2% | 83K |
| 20:00 UTC | -1% | 77K |
| 21:00 UTC | -1% | 68K |
| 22:00 UTC | -2% | 59K |
| 23:00 UTC | -2% | 53K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +5% | 237K |
| Monday | 0% | 300K |
| Tuesday | -3% | 299K |
| Wednesday | -1% | 256K |
| Thursday | -1% | 249K |
| Friday | -3% | 258K |
| Saturday | +3% | 232K |
Best tweets
- Aug 31, 202629x their median
So in the past 36 hours, the Washington Post has published articles based on: 1. Illegal leaks of highly classified military planning data, obtained by someone who almost certainly knew they were committing a serious felony with possible punishments including death. Do you think the Washington Post cares? Do they have a conscience? 2. Illegal access by WaPo's Dastardly Dam Lamothe of sensitive personnel data on the "Pentagon system" (Dastardly Dan's words, not mine) of former temporary federal "Special Government Employees" who were and are now private citizens. I'm guessing the person who granted such illegal access has no idea he or she committed a criminal misdemeanor. Do you think Dastardly Dan or anyone else in the WaPo warned that stooge of the possible consequences of what he or she was doing? Probably not. Do you think the Washington Post cares? Do they have a conscience? Do you understand now why it is that the Pentagon needed to shut off unaccompanied Pentagon access to cretinous "journalists" who care not one bit about national security, or the lives of our dedicated service men and women, or statutory privacy rights of private citizens? Does it finally make sense?
- Sep 1, 20269.2x their median
Jack Reed, ranking member on Armed Services, West Point grad, former Army officer: Hegseth has to go https://t.co/aDRKNvPiIp
- Sep 1, 20268.2x their median
"Hegseth has banished another enemy, Driscoll, from the Pentagon. But as the saying goes: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Hegseth, more than ever, now owns every aspect of the Pentagon’s dysfunction." https://t.co/xGlcD3mUNi
- Aug 31, 20266.6x their median
The number of people in the Guard/Reserve that have reached out to me have grown quickly after this article was published. Our strategic reserve is going to have a major retention problem and is being burned down. https://t.co/W4zFgif0Fq
- Aug 31, 20265.2x their median
Senior officers deserve the best possible education: effective, unbiased & laser-focused on our core warfighting mission. 🇺🇸 @SecWar directed a Senior Service College Task Force to conduct a comprehensive review of @DeptofWar SSCs. Its mandate: ensure these institutions are anchored in military history, strategy, high standards, meritocracy & overall excellence. That review is now complete. Special thanks to @RobManess, @KurtSchlichter & Tom Anderson for answering the call to serve on this Task Force. Led by Dr. Maurice L. Todd—ASW(R), PhD, MA, MS & top 5% West Point graduate—they delivered critical recommendations to strengthen our SSCs & prepare our military leaders to achieve peace through strength.
- Aug 25, 20264.6x their median
A botched State Dept leak to MAGA media star "Data Republican" has spun out of control, sparking accusations of a deep-state plot and revealing that Data Republican is secretly on the Dept of Defense payroll. My latest newsletter for @BulwarkOnline https://t.co/mlvSqpOCcx
- Sep 1, 20263.7x their median
EXCLUSIVE: Prior to his resignation, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll took his concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership directly to President Trump, @NancyAYoussef, @missy_ryan, and @MichaelScherer report: https://t.co/yPzvitKrFg
- Aug 21, 20262.6x their median
Trump has shown the world that even a tiny nuclear arsenal deters America, and in Trump’s case, enemies who acquire nuclear weapons will also receive fawning "love letters" and precious visits from the most powerful man on the planet. https://t.co/SLVO8HZgPS
- Sep 1, 2026
Just gonna note that the people here who think I should be fired from the Naval War College - I'll never resign! - argue that my articles and posts were indivisible from my role as a professor at a DOD institution. People literally called NWC late at night after reading a post.
- Sep 1, 2026
At least one defender of the SSC influencer posse is saying that they had to sign NDAs. I doubt that's true, but if you have to sign an NDA just to be on a review committee for military education, then man, you are doing a lot of things, including education, the wrong way.
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.
Buy or sell X accounts - escrow-protected
PlayerSells is an escrow marketplace for X accounts. Every deal is protected, with no middleman risk.
Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 500 interactions against 677K followers, an engagement rate of 0.074%. Measured over 21 original posts, its engagement rate beats 65% of 3,882 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 40K times each, and 1.26% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 5.85% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 4.1 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 27% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 01:00 UTC, and Tuesday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 21 posts sampled, 29% carry an image or video and 52% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 14K interactions, about 29x its own typical post.
- What is Tom Nichols's engagement rate on X?
- Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) has an engagement rate of 0.074%, based on the median interactions across 21 original posts from the last 30 days against 677,151 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At 0.074%, Tom Nichols sits above the 25th percentile of the 37,582 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 @RadioFreeTom have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 65% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (3,882 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 @RadioFreeTom post?
- Most posts go out around 01:00 UTC, and Tuesday is its busiest day, at roughly 4.07 posts per day across the measured window.