How To Get Retweeted: Ask For It, Study Says

How To Get Retweeted: Say Please

Want to be retweeted? Ask for it--and don't forget to say "please."

That's the advice from a new report by Internet marketing company HubSpot. The company, which analyzed over 10,000 tweets that included a retweet "ask," but were not "@" replies, concluded that tweets that contain the phrase "Please RT" or "Please retweet" are more likely to be retweeted on Twitter.

HubSpot writes in its report, "51% of tweets that included 'Please ReTweet' were retweeted more than once, 39% of those including 'Please RT' were retweeted more than once, and only 12% of tweets that included neither were retweeted more than once."

HubSpot also found that how users asked for the retweet affected the frequency with which others would repost the content: tweets with the phrase "Please retweet" received an average of 20.9 retweets, while tweets with the phrase "Please RT" received an average of 6.1 retweets. Posts without any retweet "ask" received 4.2 retweets on average.

The company claims that the results are statistically significant, but before you throw a "please retweet" into all your posts, consider that the research did not take into account the content of the tweets--that is, whether there was something about the kind of information or news in the remaining characters of the post that made it more shareable.

In December 2010, Twitter shared the most retweeted tweets of the year, which offer some clues on what it takes to earn a "RT" on Twitter. The top 10 that made the list were, by and large, those that were posted by celebrities, included no links, were funny, and were short. None, it should be noted, included the phrase "Please RT." Does "please retweet" make you more likely to retweet a post or less likely? Do you find it annoying or of assistance? Weigh in below, or tweet us at @HuffPostTech.

Take a look at the least retweeted words (and most retweeted words), then check out our post on what we retweet and why.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot