Will You Please Retweet This Great New Blog Post.

Posted on September 24, 2009. Filed under: Communications Strategy, Twitter | Tags: best practices Twitter, contagious idea, Dan Zarrella, etiquette, Fast Company, how to get retweeted, innovation, most retweeted words, report, retweet, RT, science, Social Media, social media strategy, Social Networks, the science of retweets, Twitter, Twitter Power, viral idea, virtual, why people retweet, word of mouth marketing |

Have you noticed that more people are including “please retweet” in Twitter messages?

This is interesting because in certain circles it’s considered bad Twetiquette (boorish) to request a retweet.

Joel Comm in his bestselling book Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time writes: “While you can ask specifically for retweets — and some people do — it’s not really good form.”

The reason for retweets

A retweet is akin to forwarding an email. If you receive a message you like so much you want to pass it on to your followers, just do a retweet, or RT.

There are many reasons for an RT, such as to let others know about breaking news. News about Twitter is especially RT worthy. For illustration purposes here are a few RT examples from my account:

This one earns a double RT. The message links to a terrific resource for search rank marketing information. Many of my followers are into SEO, so it gets an RT.

Quotes/words of wisdom comprise a good deal of Twitter traffic. I like the sentiment in this message and think my followers will, too.

This news item caught my eye and it provides entrée for a little humor. I like to give followers a chuckle now and again.

Report: The Science of Retweets

About the recent rise in people asking to be retweeted — I have an idea why it’s happening.

Earlier this week Fast Company posted an article titled Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted On Twitter. It gave a sneak peek of a paper by Dan Zarrella, a noted marketing scientist and web developer who’s into scrutinizing all things Twitter.

Zarrella then posts the full report, The Science of Retweets, on his blog.

Zarrella says his interest in retweets is inspired by the notion that the web enables us to see how an idea catches fire and goes viral: “For the first time in human history we can begin to gaze into the inner workings of the contagious idea.”

Hmmm, sounds a lot like the tipping point.

Retweets have implications beyond the idea that those who get RTed are flattered to receive a virtual stamp of approval. They’re word-of-mouth marketing. They play a role in politics, as happened when talk about death panels and the health care debate got RTed around the twitosphere.

Those two letters pack a lot of heat.

OK, so what’s the secret to getting an RT?

Zarrella’s report presents statistics on several aspects of retweeting to identify what he refers to as “contagious traits.” His findings include the following:

• Messages containing links are three times more likely to be RTed than those without.
• It’s good to be first out of the gate; novelty/newness accounts for many RTs.
• Punctuation is preferred, and top RT getters include a colon, period, or an exclamation point.
• Negativity and potty-talk are out — religion, work, money and celebrities are in.
• The highest daily volume of RTs occurs on Friday.

And then there’s these last two items; the top list likely accounts for the recent upsurge in RTs:

Take another look at most RT-able words and phrases and then take a gander the title of this post. See why it is how it is?

Will you please retweet this great new blog post?

- Deni Kasrel

What do YOU think of the science of retweets? Comments welcome.

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