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Maria Popova engagement report

@themarginalian - 839K followers on X

Measured over 113 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 26, 2026.

Engagement

Middle of its size range
Per follower
0.007%
of 839K followers
Per impression
0.581%
10K views on a typical post
Reach
1.23%
of its followers see a post
Typical post
60
interactions (median)
Saved
0.242%
25 bookmarks on a typical post
Posting rate
3.77/day
active 50% of days
Peak time
21:00 UTC
Sunday

A typical post picks up 60 interactions against 839K followers, an engagement rate of 0.007%. Measured over 113 original posts, its engagement rate beats 29% 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 10K times each, and 0.581% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 1.23% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 3.8 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on roughly 50% of days. Most posts go out around 21:00 UTC, and Sunday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 113 posts sampled, 5% carry an image or video and 100% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 660 interactions, about 11x its own typical post.

Measured over 113 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 26, 2026. Recurring tag: #birddivination.

Compared with accounts its own size

Maria Popova's engagement rate beats 29% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (20,444 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 10 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 34% 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 0.007%, Maria Popova sits above the 10th percentile of the 204,798 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the bottom 25% band, which runs below 0.024%.

p100.004%
p250.024%
p50 (median)0.143%
p750.678%
p902.55%
p9982.4%
Engagement rate as a share of followers, across the 204,798 accounts we have scanned enough to measure. The axis is logarithmic, because the top and bottom of this population are about 22,879 times apart and a linear axis would flatten everything below the median into a single point.
Show the percentile table
Engagement rate percentiles
PercentileEngagement rate
10th percentile0.004%
25th percentile0.024%
50th percentile0.143%
75th percentile0.678%
90th percentile2.55%
99th percentile82.4%

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 21:00 UTC, and Sunday 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.

Engagement by hour posted, UTCTwenty-four bars, one per UTC hour. Each bar shows how posts published in that hour compare with their own authors' median engagement. Bars above the centre line ran higher than the median, bars below ran lower. A marker flags Busiest hour: 21:00 UTC.
0003060912151821
Above the authors' own mediansBelowScale: plus or minus 111%Busiest hour: 21:00 UTC
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
Engagement by hour posted, UTC
Hour (UTC)Vs author medianPosts
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 UTC0%116K
22:00 UTC-2%100K
23:00 UTC-1%90K
Engagement by day of weekSeven bars, one per weekday, Sunday first. Each bar shows how posts published on that day compare with their own authors' median engagement. Bars above the centre line ran higher than the median, bars below ran lower. A marker flags Busiest day: Sunday.
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
Above the authors' own mediansBelowScale: plus or minus 111%Busiest day: Sunday
Show engagement by day of week as a table
Engagement by day of week
DayVs author medianPosts
Sunday+5%393K
Monday+1%483K
Tuesday-2%520K
Wednesday-3%472K
Thursday-2%430K
Friday-3%447K
Saturday+2%393K
See what moves engagement across the whole catalogWhat counts as a good engagement rate at this size

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.

This account's posting mix compared with catalog-wide effects
FormatThis accountCatalog effect95% intervalAccounts behind it
Image or video5% of posts+111%+108% to +115%34K
Outbound link100% of posts-41%-42% to -40%32K
Typical length--3%-3% to -2%54K
  • 5% 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.
  • 100% of its posts carry a link off X. Across the catalog, posts with an outbound link run 41% below the same accounts' other posts, so a large share of this account's output sits in the weakest bucket we measure.
  • Its average post runs 144 characters, which falls in the 80 - 180 characters band. Across the catalog, posts of 80 to 180 characters run 3% below the same accounts' other posts.

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

  • Jan 6, 202611x their median

    Across the abyss between one consciousness and another, between one frame of reference and another, we go on searching for an organizing principle to fathom the ultimate questions: What is life? What is death? What makes a body a person? What makes a planet a world? Over and over, we discover that it is all one question, that there might just be a single answer: love. Our love of knowledge. Our love of mystery. Our love of beauty transcending the vanity of ambition. Our love of truth prevailing over the howling hunger for power. Our love for each other — each of us a festival of particles and probabilities, a living question, a perishable miracle composed of chemistry and culture, of passion and chance. https://t.co/NQlN6dFG3h

    34628326587K viewsView on X
  • Sep 7, 20266.4x their median

    Still the finest thing I've ever read about the art of growing older https://t.co/xSB9yDPwig

    332472238K viewsView on X
  • Aug 27, 20265.6x their median

    Your life will thank you for reading Jad Abumrad's tender, thoughtful recollection of Dolly's superpower, her dazzlingly integrated duality https://t.co/nqJtODBp5G

    275573119K viewsView on X
  • Sep 22, 20265.2x their median

    "Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance." Baldwin's timeless advice on writing: https://t.co/bdAD88YayJ

    258494318K viewsView on X
  • Sep 7, 20264.7x their median

    "The mind narrates what the nervous system knows. Story follows state." Polyvagal theory and the neurobiology of connection – the science of rupture, repair, and reciprocity https://t.co/049xCwVNDG

    242363122K viewsView on X
  • Sep 6, 20264.5x their median

    The greatest commencement address of all time – Nobel-winning poet Joseph Brodsky's 6 rules for playing the game of life like a winner https://t.co/FBUkU6IZAP

    224423329K viewsView on X
  • Aug 28, 20264.5x their median

    "Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny." Hermann Hesse on solitude, the value of hardship, and how to find your destiny https://t.co/MWDfIb9fI7

    221433319K viewsView on X
  • Aug 27, 20264.2x their median

    "1. Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom." 10 rules of writing (which apply to all creative work) from one of the finest writers of our time https://t.co/3jrGv2wAs4

    226221123K viewsView on X
  • Sep 8, 20263.8x their median

    How to be an instrument of kindness in a harsh world – George Saunders on unthinking the mind, unstorying the self, and the 3 antidotes to your suffering https://t.co/DUCgC3JHbu

    188391120K viewsView on X
  • Aug 21, 20263.2x their median

    Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on the dignity of neediness and the intelligence of emotions https://t.co/R2ocArfHAF

    156341220K viewsView on X

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.

Recurring topics

#birddivination

The most frequent hashtags in the sampled posts. They describe what this account writes about; they are not a performance signal, and the catalog-wide breakdown on the hub shows how little hashtag count moves.

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Reading these numbers

A typical post picks up 60 interactions against 839K followers, an engagement rate of 0.007%. Measured over 113 original posts, its engagement rate beats 29% 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 10K times each, and 0.581% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 1.23% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 3.8 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on roughly 50% of days. Most posts go out around 21:00 UTC, and Sunday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 113 posts sampled, 5% carry an image or video and 100% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 660 interactions, about 11x its own typical post.

What is Maria Popova's engagement rate on X?
Maria Popova (@themarginalian) has an engagement rate of 0.007%, based on the median interactions across 113 original posts from the last 30 days against 838,619 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
Is that a good engagement rate?
At 0.007%, Maria Popova sits above the 10th percentile of the 204,798 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 @themarginalian have real engagement?
Its engagement rate beats 29% 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 @themarginalian post?
Most posts go out around 21:00 UTC, and Sunday is its busiest day, at roughly 3.77 posts per day across the measured window.

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