Want More ReTweets on Twitter? Tweet More Photos & Videos!
With more than 360 million users tweeting over 230 million times per day, Twitter has become one of the most popular social networks in the world in less than a decade. With your average user following over 500 Twitter accounts, the competition for interaction and effective engagement is tough. How do you get people to tweet about your brand? How do you get more retweets (or RTs, in Tweet-speak)? Recent research has shown that pictures and videos are retweeted more often than tweets which only contain text or links.
Twitter recently cross-referenced their service data with the number of retweets based on a certain set of parameters. Twitter researchers looked at hashtags, quotes, photo URLs (links), and video URLs on verified accounts in multiple industries, including television and entertainment, government, sports, and news.
Photo URLs were the most popular among retweets, making up over 35% of all retweeted material. Video URLs came in at a close second at 28% of retweets, almost twice as much as hashtagged tweets and quotes combined. In fact, in the TV industry, video tweets were reported to be more effective than photo and hashtag retweets. In the Music industry, tweets with video took the lead at 35%, while photo fell just a bit behind at 32%. The only industries where video tweets did not perform as well or better than photo tweets or other tweets were Sports and Government. However, tweets with photos still performed significantly better than any other kind of tweet.
If you want to maximize the effectiveness of your social activity on Twitter, you need to include links to interesting, high-quality, share-worthy photos and videos. To make sure you round all the bases, make sure you include a relevant hashtag or two (no more than 3!) and maybe include a quote from the source of the video or photo (if it’s not your own); you can even mention the source by Twitter handle (@TwitterUsername) for better chances for engagement.
For more information on utilizing video and photography in social media, contact the experts at In Focus Studios. With professional videography and photography studios in Pittsboro, North Carolina and Annapolis, Maryland, we can help you create the visual content you need to create the high-quality, professional look you need. Call today for a free consultation!
