The 411 on Getting Retweeted – Top Tweets from Clinton Global Initiative

Anyone on Twitter knows the wonderful feeling that results when someone you admire retweets you. Let’s be honest, it’s flattering. In order to get more pats on the back, you need to extend your sphere of influence and ensure your tweets are re-tweet worthy! For those of you following this week’s series, you know Waggener Edstrom (WE) put our twendz pro™ tool to use to capture insight around the robust Twitter conversation from CGI. Our first post looked at overall Twitter metrics from the event (can you believe 8 million people were following the CGI conversation?) and yesterday we explored the 10 top influencers (make sure you are following these people!)

Without further ado, below are the top 10 most retweeted influencers:

• @ClintonTweet (retweeted 335 times): Just announced: @BarackObama will join President Clinton at #cgi2010 on Thursday. webcast: http://bit.ly/bBrQ5u.

• @avrillavigne (retweeted 133 times): Great agriculture panel at #cgi2010, did you know that a billion people eat too much and a billion don’t have enough to eat?

• @jimcarrey (retweeted 100 times): Did you know that I’m speaking on a panel with the US Secretary of Agriculture about growing rice at the Clinton Global Initiative on 9/22?

• @changemakers (retweeted 73 times): #Women perform 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the food, BUT earn 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. #CGI2010 #SocEnt

• @redhourben (Ben Stiller retweeted 67 times): Clinton Global Initiative time. Really smart ppl working 2 solve problems & help. Also Shakira is here, so that helps. http://bit.ly/bBrQ5u

• @avrilfoundation (retweeted 39 times): Avril Lavigne learning about improving the lives of small farmers at the Clinton Global Initiative #cgi2010: http://bit.ly/aPrYyg

• @sloane (retweeted 32 times): ‘When you change the lives of girls and women, you also change the lives of boys and men.’ World Bank’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala #CGI2010

• @johnwoodRTR (retweeted 30 times): Today at #CGI2010 we made a bold commitment to help 1 million girls gain the lifelong gift of education http://bit.ly/cZigzP

• @addthis (retweeted 30 times): Clinton Global Initiative Sept 20-23 WATCH online http://t.co/rLmFpFr via @AddThis & @AmyDugan

• @endeavoringe (retweeted 29 times): Prez of Finland answers re: investing in tech in developing world: “I’d invest in teachers.” Spot-on #cgi2010

The Analysis (If you want to understand the science behind it all)

WE twendz pro culled the top 10 influencers retweeted (RT’d) by their followers, a calculation that is based solely on the number of times a person had their posts RT’d by others. You should know that this list is not impacted in any way by a person’s influence ranking, but simply how often they were RT’d.  WE manually pulled the most popular tweets by these top 10 users in order to identify the tweets that had the most traction.

While a large follower base does play a significant role in a user’s content being RT’d, it does not necessarily mean that person is influential (quantity vs. quality). Take for instance, singer Avril Lavigne, with 292,099 followers. She was counted as one of the top ten RT’d users according to WE twendz pro, however she was not identified to be among the top 10 influencers during CGI. This could be due to her lack of engagement with her followers, frequency of posts, inclusion of links, etc.

A common thread among the influential Tweeters who were most frequently RT’d was their active use of hashtags and links, sharing key statistics or quotes, and their engagement with other Tweeters on a consistent basis (quality vs. quantity).

How You Can become Twitter Popular

What made these tweets so popular?   There are a few key principles to keep in mind, especially, if you want to amp your own “re-tweet” worthy quotient:

• Follower base:  Fairly simple. More followers equals more eyes which increases the likelihood your content will get retweeted. Waggener Edstrom stands by the belief of quality vs. quantity with regard to influence, but there is no denying that a user with 10,000 followers has more chance of pickup than one with 50 followers.

• Links:  Actionable links are the lifeblood of Twitter. Provide a strong tie to the context you’re tweeting about and you’ll see much stronger likelihood for response.

• Stats & Quotes:  Especially when live-tweeting at events, Twitter users want to consume quick nuggets of digestible information. This helps paints a strong picture for those  unable to be physically present.

• Engagement:  If your tweet can tie to another influencer via an “@reply”, you’re establishing credibility around what you’re tweeting.

• Content – Is King. Of course. Timely, relevant content that also fits into a conversation stream via a hashtag will increase the chances of drawing more eyeballs.

Our next post will explore the most significant content and news that came from CGI. If you want to wrap your head around whether cook stoves or cancer was a major theme, check out Innovation Conversations tomorrow.

WE9368