I’ve looked at the 20 words and phrases that tend to get the most ReTweets, but what about the flip-side of that coin? What about the words that are least likely to get your ReTweets?
I used my database of over 30 million ReTweets, and compared it to a sample of over 2 million random Tweets and found the common words that occurred far more often in non-ReTweets. The percentages below represent the relative Un-ReTweetability of the 20 least ReTweetable words.
Some Highlights from the List
There are a number of “-ing” verbs, including “going,” “watching” and “listening,” which reinforces my understanding that answers to the “What are you doing?” question don’t get very many ReTweets.
The presence of “sleep,” “bed,” “night,” and “tired” indicate that people often Tweet “goodnight” style messages, but generally don’t ReTweet them.
The relatively informal nature of many of the words on the list including “lol,” “gonna,” and “hey,” show that simple or slang conversation is not ReTweetable.
The lesson learned here is that if you’re trying to get more ReTweets, don’t just engage in idle chit-chat or Tweet about mundane activities.
| Occurrences | Word or Phrase |
| 0.88% | game |
| 0.84% | going |
| 0.72% | haha |
| 0.71% | lol |
| 0.7% | but |
| 0.66% | watching |
| 0.63% | work |
| 0.6% | home |
| 0.48% | night |
| 0.44% | bed |
| 0.43% | well |
| 0.38% | sleep |
| 0.38% | gonna |
| 0.37% | hey |
| 0.32% | tomorrow |
| 0.3% | tired |
| 0.29% | some |
| 0.29% | back |
| 0.29% | bored |
| 0.28% | listening |
If you liked this post, don't forget to subscribe to my RSS feed or my email newsletter so you never miss the science.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Wow.. I really don't know about the retweet and what you explain here..
Maybe I'm not really good in English or tech..
I will learn about retweet
August 26th, 2009 at 12:59 am
I am suprised that the word “game” has such a low score. I would have thought it would have been much higher. Any thoughts around this?
August 26th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Did you analyse all 30 million or did you sample?
August 26th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Thanks Dan, this makes good sense. I wouldn't waste time ReTweeting a post that didn't have some intrinsic value to myself and in my view, others in it. This research is a good affirmation to stick to that principle.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:35 am
DAn keeps coming up with good stats and thoughts on twitter, keep it up Dan!
October 4th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Interesting I like retweets to get visitors to my blog and my youtube videos I'll have to avoid using these words, thanks for this interesting information.
October 4th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Interesting I like retweets to get visitors to my blog and my youtube videos I'll have to avoid using these words, thanks for this interesting information.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
[...] Avoid the Wrong Words. Dan has also compiled a list of the 20 least retweeted words. He points out some patterns: words ending in “-ing,” words revolving around [...]