Earlier today, Mark Wasserman at Mashable reported (check out the great graphics after that jump) on the results of a Buddy Media report that details consumer Twitter engagement with brands. One of the interesting realizations was that consumer engagement drops off with each tweet over the course of the day, and after the sixth post of the day, readers have tuned you out entirely! That said, the confined-nature of a tweet is still the daytime preference for most consumers, until after dark when Facebook activity ramps up. So, if your client has been dragging their feet on establishing a Twitter presence, this might be the type of data they need to finally step into the twitterverse.
Some of the other data focuses on specifics that can drive interaction and engagement on a tweet by tweet basis. Wasserman’s report notes that:
- Twitter engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays.
- Brands are tweeting way too much in the middle of the week and not nearly enough on the weekend.
- Tweets of 100 characters or less got a 17% higher engagement rate than longer tweets.
- Tweets with a link have an 86% higher retweet rate than tweets without a link.
- Using one or two hashtags in a tweet is fine. If you add a third hashtag, engagement drops sharply.
- If you ask followers to “RT,” you’ll get a 12 times higher retweet rate than if you don’t. But if you spell out the word “retweet,” that figure jumps to 23 times higher.
So, what are the lessons to learn. Brevity will be rewarded, as will making it easier for followers to filter your content. Second, ask for the retweet more often. If you are like me, I often feel like I’m intruding on my followers to outright ask for the RT.
Lastly give the readers what they want. Providing them with content or an outlet through which to take action in the form of link will drive that amazing 86% bump in retweetings. This last point goes beyond the form and function of your tweet content though. Brands simply need to be active on the weekends! Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to be bothered with work tweeting on the weekends, after all there are crazy cat videos and pictures of your meal at the super-chic Le Table Sur Le Grand Bateau to be shared! Well, the numbers don’t lie, you’ll be sacrificing that 17% bump!
Good market data and consumer behavior insight is hard to come by, so when you find a report that crunches data realized through analysis of 320 Twitter handles of the world largest brands it’s usually good advice to seriously consider.