What constitutes a great tweet? [Infographic]

Twitter can sometimes be a source all sorts of affairs. Perhaps the great thing about twitter is the freedom it affords its users about whom to follow and unfollow (or block) at any given moment. With over 500 million registered users and counting, and approximately 400 million + generated tweets per day (on average), therein lies enormous value and, at the same time, a great deal of absolute rubbish (in every sense of the word). There is a widely accepted notion that the quality of a timeline depends on the people followed, right? Well, the data seem to suggest otherwise.

I recently came across a study published last year by Harvard Business Review about the makings of a great tweet, and I was pretty shocked to learn that only 36% of tweets are worth reading. However, the researchers raised a caveat in their study declaring that that their participants tended to be “technology-centric and news-focused”, which meant that the study might not entirely have been a complete representation of Twitter users in general.

Another surprise is pertaining to the best and the worst type tweets. With the 4 best type tweets being about

(1) Random thoughts

(2) Self-Promotion

(3) Question to followers

(4) Information Sharing

While the worst 4 types of tweets being about

(1) Opinion/ Complaint

(2) ‘Me Now’ tweets ( of which I must admit, are quite annoying)

(3) Conversations

(4) Presence maintenance

Below is an infographic which sums up the findings of the study in detail.

Finally, the great mystery — apparently, 40% of twitter users are discreet users — active in following other people’s tweets, but do not tweet. Perhaps another study is needed to explain this mystery, as well as, another enigma — the makings of a great ‘subtweet’.