Want to build a better tweet? Think short, punchy and newsy.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Rosaura Ochoa.
No question, the ability of companies to market themselves effectively through the low-cost forum of Twitter has emerged as a top marketing innovation.
Recent research into the Twitter practices of 47 companies including Whole Foods, Starbucks, Nokia, and JetBlue, detailed in “How to Get Your Messages Retweeted,” in our new Winter 2012 issue, notes that savvy companies in the medium focus on getting tweets passed along and validated by followers.
Here are some of the findings of what works best:
- Tweet 70 characters, maximum. Shorter tweets are passed along as retweets nearly twice as often as longer tweets, the authors found. Shorter tweets also leave room for followers to add their own comments.
- Use attention words. Words like WOW and TODAY ONLY grab the eye and are retweeted as much as 40% more often than other tweets.
- Make tweets personal. Personal can mean funny: tweets with jokes are retweeted as much as 70% more frequently. Personal humanizes the brand.
- Provide news people can use. Content that educates followers instead of just pushing a brand is 51% more likely to be retweeted.
- Offer a deal. Tweets with deals are retweeted 16% more than those without.
- Tweet about upcoming events. Notices that create a sense of anticipation, such as news about an upcoming sale or report, are 24% more likely to be retweeted.
See the full article for more ideas from authors Arvind Malhotra, Claudia Kubowicz Malhotra and Alan See.
Posted in: Marketing, Social Business
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Here’s a power tip: Headline-driven sites like Digg or Cracked live and die on the power of the virability of their titles. As a result, by using the structure of those titles as your Tweets or even Facebook updates, you can actually boost your retweetability by a huge margin.
Try it and let me know.
~ Jason Brown
http://www.whitespaceinternational.com