The Twenty Most Retweetable Words on Twitter

The Science of Marketing by Dan Zarrella offers up plenty of quantifiable research about the use of Twitter, what folks are retweeting and what links they’re clicking on (and keep reading for a link to a free chapter of the book).

One cool bit of research was his look at what tweets were most retweeted, offering up the twenty most retweetable words on Twitter, including:

1. you

2. twitter

3. please

4. retweet

5. post

6. blog

7. social

8. free

9. media

10. help

11. please retweet

12. great

13. social media

14. 10

15. follow

16. how to

17. top

18. blog post

19. check out

20. new blog post

According to Zarrella, “The most retweetable word in my data set was the word you. Twitter users want to hear you talk about them, not yourself…”

Conversely, the LEAST retweetable words include:

1. game

2. going

3. haha

4. lol

5. but

6. watching

7. work

8. home

9. night

10. bed

11. well

12. sleep

13. gonna

14. hey

15. tomorrow

16. tired

17. some

18. back

19. bored

20. listening

Most of these words indicate that the person using them is talking about himself or herself and personal activities,” says Dan, “such as watching the game, listening to something, or going to bed. Even worse is the occurrence of the word bored here. If you ’re tweeting that you ’re bored, don ’t expect it to get retweets, as you ’re being quite boring yourself.”

The point illustrated brilliantly with this quantified data is that people will share what is interesting, what matters to them and what passes along knowledge. Letting folks know you have a new blog post or how-to advice or great info does that. Telling them what you’re doing, watching or feeling does not.

For the free chapter (courtesy of Hubspot) on Twitter from Dan Zarella’s book: The Science of Marketing with info on:

How to get more followers.
The data behind retweets.
What behaviors get more clicks.
How to setup your profile for success.
Why content is more important than conversation.

CLICK HERE. Then, tell us how you’re using Twitter to promote your work or learn more. (BTW, we found the link to this free chapter on – you guessed it – Twitter!)