A new tool developed by researchers after a thorough study will now help the Twitterati to construct the "perfect tweet."
A study backed by the National Science Foundation and Google used an algorithm to thoroughly analyse the sentence constructions, rhetoric and keywords that makes certain tweets get more attention than others. The findings were then used to create a tool that weighed two wordings of the same tweet to ascertain a percentage chance that one is likely to be more popular than the other, reported Mashable.
According to researchers, politely requesting followers to retweet can go a long way in pushing the popularity curve of a tweet. Words like, "please," "pls," "plz" and "retweet" topped the list of factors that constitute a successful tweet.
The study found that adding the words, "please retweet" to an identical message in the popularity calculator, made a tweet about 95% more likely to be shared.
Users are also advised to use languages familiar to the target audience that is consistent with past messages and simulate the abbreviated style of headline writers.
While asking users to give their tweets a negative or positive spin, keep them readable and informative, the study warned the twitterati against using the first person. It said that adding the word "I" reduced a tweet's sharing potential by about 50 percent.
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The tool however, is not infallible as it equates the length of a tweet with how informative it is. Therefore, tacking on an extra word would make the algorithm think the tweet is about 50% more retweetable.
The researchers admitted that the tool had a "glaring drawback" and that is, it is yet to master a sense of humour. Lillian Lee, a computer science and information science professor at Cornell, said in a press release, "We would love to capture amusingness or cleverness, but we haven't found a way to do that yet.
