DISQUS

Michelle Rafter · 10 months ago

Following this advice, this should be the most retweetable Twitter post of all! (except that I couldn't squeeze in a URL)

Thanks for the follow. Can you please help retweet a great new blog post - top 10 free social media tools on how to find people on Twitter

Michelle Rafter
WordCount: Freelancing in the digital age

Ryan Kuder · 10 months ago

"You post great help blog about free how to Twitter social media. Please Retweet!" <--Big RT Winning Tweet

Allen Kelly · 10 months ago

I am going to put this to the test in my next tweet.

@allenkelly

Allen Kelly · 10 months ago

New Blog Post: Twitter is Top 10 Free Social Media marketing for you. Check out how to get great follows! Please ReTweet.

Diana Freedman · 10 months ago

This is a great article! That's really interesting that "please" and "please retweet" actually work. Definitely something to keep in mind in the future.

To clarify on the stats... I'm assuming there's no crossover in your stats between "social" and "social media", and then "please" and "please retweet", etc. :-) Also, are those occurrences by day?

Thanks!

Missy (from Twitter Tshirt Blo · 10 months ago

For me (usually) the tweets i re-tweet involve brevity and the following words:

Breaking
New
Free
Hot
Easy

And a few others. Including many from your chart above.

Joyce Sanders · 10 months ago

Super Article Dan! I am so glad I found your Tweets. I am going to do and blog about this subject at my blog and at CMU7. I will refer to your article and place a link in the article. Do I have your permission to use the link to this article?

Regards,
Joyce (roadcat) Sanders

Lyell E. Petersen / @93octane · 10 months ago

I tested your theory, and you're totally right! I tweeted:

http://twitter.com/93octane/statuses/1162230153

and then this happened:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22you+twitt...

Proof!

Alex Schleber · 10 months ago

Great follow-up to your first post, which was already excellent. This is the kind of useful data that only very few are beginning to wake up to, as far as Twitter as a data goldmine and hive-mind is concerned.

And the, sometimes unexpected, uses and connections are only increasing by the day, which I attribute to Twitters striking simplicity...

Came up with a new SMM Twitter hack just on my way over to this post from "re.twitd.com/hours" ;)

Follow me on Twitter, I follow back:
Twitter.com/AlexSchleber

Florida SEO · 10 months ago

At it again with your brilliant titles ... :)

Book em' Dan O'

:)

EB

theBandwidthHog · 10 months ago

The words "you" and "please" really don't surprise me at landing so high on the list.

I think there are multiple benefits for using "you". In using it for a blog post title, it does make it more personal to the blog reader. And by being in the title, it also gives the potential re-tweeter the ability to provide value to their followers by simply forwarding the information.

I believe that "please" is a very powerful word. I don't think anyone enjoys being to be told what to do, and by simply asking for assistance, one is bound to get better results.

Thank you for the post.

Jeff Korhan · 10 months ago

Dan - I guess we all got the same idea, that this is the most easily retweetable post ever! Here's what I threw together on Twitter with very little thought.

Top 20 Words or Phrases Most Often Retweeted :http://adjix.com/3ct2 Please Retweet 10 times. It's great. Helps your blog and social media.:)

You should have a contest. The most Retweetable Tweet using these words!

Jeff Korhan

Chris Morin · 10 months ago

Great article Dan! I will keep these in mind when I'm posting. I just started adding the please rt... :)

Thanks!

J. D. Ebberly · 10 months ago

If you have a blog post that presents good content relevant to the space, someone tweets it, and I spot it, I'll definitely guarantee you that I WILL RETWEET your tweet ASAP!!!

Thanks for an EXCELLENT article!!! I retweeted it, btw.

Miguel Alvarez · 10 months ago

I twitted your post using the TweetSuite link. But it didn't take.
Anyway... another great article Dan. Thanks for sharing! =)

Alex Newell · 10 months ago

I guess this study is the beginning of the Science of Twitterology.

You got an "ology", you got a science.

Keepin tweetin'

/AlexNewell

Paul Castain · 10 months ago

Thanks Dan!

This is very helpful, useful and right on target!

Paul Castain
Consolidated Graphics

Beth Bridges · 10 months ago

I think this shows the interesting conjunction between the friendly, helpful nature of Twitter with the exploration of the commercial possibilities.

Still, it definitely shows that the positive traits of good "real world" networkers (provide useful information, ask for help, be other-focused) still apply in the Social Media world.

Thank you for digging into the info stream for us!

Nathan · 10 months ago

Good post Dan - love some kind of statistical breakdown - but why, why, oh why didn't you follow your own advice and name it something like "The Top 10 x 2 Words and Phrases That Will Get You the Most ReTweets"?

Ricky C · 10 months ago

Nice Tips!! I just saved those keyword and i will give it a shot once i got something to tweet to my followers

Dave · 10 months ago

I am not concerned about getting retweeted.

Isaac Yassar · 10 months ago

Some words are known to be having special psychological effect on people, a research about them in twitter is certainly useful. Good job!

Felipe Coimbra · 10 months ago

Interesting results here about "Please Re-tweet" tweets: http://twtpoll.com/r/durw1m

Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Arti · 10 months ago

Hello from beautiful Montana;

thanks so much for sharing information and ideas. This is the change that is coming-for all of us to help all of us to succeed.

I learn a lot from others like you, and invite others to learn from me.

Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, family relationship coach and author

http://www.ArtichokePress.com

Ruth Purple · 10 months ago

Great article, Dan. Quite helpful. I'll be checking for your updates!

Marianna Hayes · 10 months ago

Very interesting... as a journalism and psych major who still hoards interest in human thinking and motivation, this is curiously fascinating. I've shared with my blog readers as they launch into the Twitter world as well.

Bertil Hatt · 10 months ago

I'm sorry to come so late to the party — and to bring not just flowers, but you know how us academics are: something is only good after we've spent a few hours bitting it to pieces. . .

So, as usual in seminars: Fantastic work — but:

* You are assuming that if twits with "please" are more re-tweeted, adding it will encourage re-tweeting; it certainly is interesting it is, but I'd rather interpret is as a signal from the author that this is a a cause worthy of interest beyond his circle; to be more blunt: no one knows what it re-tweetable better than the original poster.

* In more recent posts (I went anti-chronologically, sorry) you mention vectors, seeders: you must have seen the debate between Duncan Watts who though those were too changing to be identified and. . . was Gladwell the leading figure "for" seeders? Well, you might as well be it. I'd love to see more higher-level thinking about that issue, before your followers start to stalk my idol Stephen Fry for endorsement & RTs.

* That is certainly next steps, but I'd love to see more about timing, hashtags and the clients used: from my experience, the design makes one's behaviour completely different. E.g. I don't care about posting lame comments if I filter by keywords most of what I look at.

More generally, if you publicly encourage a behaviour (and you are becoming increasingly popular) then many would copy and the community will develop copingmechanism. It's good to remind people that common politeness is effective to signal a re-tweetable post; this will become ineffective when marketters will abuse it to the point of being synonymous with optimised advertising.

Finally (I didn't wanted to end on a critic): I'm assuming that you are familiar with graph concepts like centrality, clustering, etc. Those would be great to include in your analysis.

More generally I would love to spend more time, probably off-line, to talk about methodology — if you care for some NetworkX code-sharing ;).

Srini Kumar · 10 months ago

amazing analysis !

have you read "the nine billion names of god" by arthur c clarke by any chance ?

words.... the vedas.... reciting of words and shaping of words.... meme overload....

but better overload than hegemony, eh ? thanks for the analysis.

Louise Ross · 9 months ago

Gawd, is it really that easy! Will apply these simply rules and see what happens. Thanks so much.

James Holmes · 9 months ago

Dan - In reviewing your list I find that many of the words you listed are part of my tweet vocabulary. This is a useful posting and I appreciate the information.

Have a blessed week!

James
http://Twitter.com/AskJamesHolmes

james · 9 months ago

good job pointing out the obvious.

Internet Strategist · 9 months ago

When I used to test ppc ads I found that using the word HELP greatly reduced CTR (click through rate). I suspect people don't like to think THEY need help but perhaps they don't mind retweeting when SOMEONE ELSE needs help.

Any chance you might check this out the next time you do research? I'd be very interested to know in what context help occurs in retweets.

Ted Eleftheriou · 9 months ago

It's hard to believe that the words, "Thank You" aren't on this list!

Julie · 8 months ago

This was a great list - I think it is also helpful if you have followers that are within the same interests as your business. Those people will want to RT

anitakhart · 8 months ago

Hi, thanks for sharing this useful info! However, I do most of these and rarely get retweeted. If I do, it's only by one person and usually the same few people. Once I mentioned something at the end of a description & link "A design must read/retweet" and nothing. I want people to want to retweet me, not have to ask them to — I'd think that would annoy them. Also, I can see on bit.ly that a link gets views, but no one retweets it. I know it's got to be useful to someone. :-/

Missy · 8 months ago

I just came back to check if TIP was on your list - as that is another word i tend to retweet fairly often.

It is not. I guess it's just me, then. lol.

atul chatterjee · 7 months ago

You should post the occurrence of the first 50 words. Strange but 'thanks' is not on the list. If we have the occurrence of the first 50 words we may have a wider choice of sentences.

Kristina Summers · 3 months ago

What a great resource. I have been somewhat mystified by the whole RT thing and as a the SM coordinator at work (meaning I am supposed to know all this stuff) was feeling a little worried that I was not making the RT connections. Thanks for the advice!

James_Howard · 3 months ago

Excellent post I came here from an RT that said please RT and I am about to do that.

Not only asking for an rt but making sure the content is of some value always help.

Thanks for the list,

James

bibowski · 1 week ago

Great webinar today Dan, lots of nice pointers and comparing traditional word of mouth to the whole social media concept.

dontcry · 22 hours ago

What a great resource. I have been somewhat mystified by the whole RT thing and as a the SM coordinator at work (meaning I am supposed to know all this stuff) was feeling a little worried that I was not making the RT connections. Thanks for the advice!
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