According to a recent new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech who want to understand ‘what’s worth reading on Twitter and why‘:
Twitter users say only a little more than a third of the tweets they receive are worthwhile. Other tweets are either so-so or, in one out of four cases, not worth reading at all.
What does this mean? This research confirms some conventional wisdom about how to get retweeted:
- Old news is no news: Twitter emphasizes real-time information. Followers quickly get bored of even relatively fresh links seen multiple times.
- Contribute to the story: Add an opinion, a pertinent fact, or add to the conversation before hitting “send” on a link or a retweet.
- Keep it short: Followers appreciate conciseness. Using as few characters as possible also leaves room for longer, more satisfying comments on retweets.
- Limit Twitter-specific syntax: Overuse of #hashtags, @mentions and abbreviations makes tweets hard to read. But some syntax is helpful; if posing a question, adding a hashtag helps everyone follow along.
- Keep it to yourself: The cliched “sandwich” tweets about pedestrian, personal details were largely disliked. Reviewers reserved a special hatred for Foursquare location check-ins.
- Provide context: Tweets that are too short leave readers unable to understand their meaning. Simply linking to a blog or photo, without giving a reason to click on it, was “lame.”
- Don’t whine: Negative sentiments and complaints were disliked.
- Be a tease: News or professional organizations that want readers to click on their links need to hook them, not give away all of the news in the tweet itself.
- For public figures: People often follow you to read professional insights and can be put off by personal gossip or everyday details.
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