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Snow + Twitter Hosted Pic + Short n Sweet: The Secret to Resort Retweet Glory

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GREGG
BLANCHARD
   

For the Stash this week, I took a social media route slant on a email lesson I learned a few months ago. Specifically, that when your subject line is long or short, you get higher opens. In the middle is this strange in-between spot where performance clearly dips.

Turns out, the same held true for the length of tweets and the number of retweets that resulted.

Using that as my jumping off point, I set out to find what the common traits were for the most retweeted resort content. The only rule I set for myself was that whatever I found had to be supported by data from at least 100 tweets.

LENGTH
As I mentioned, I first found a basic correlation between length and RT rate.

criteria rt rate tweets
1-35 0.041 % 1,451
36-70 0.038 % 4,890
71-105 0.034 % 6,573
106-140 0.030 % 11,598

LINKS
Next, I took a look at various types of links included in tweets.

criteria rt rate tweets
FB Autotweet 0.065 % 4,750
Instagram 0.038 % 1,270
Twitter Pictures 0.036 % 1,723
YouTube Videos 0.035 % 410
BIT.ly 0.033 % 949
No Link 0.032 % 11,435
Any Link 0.031 % 12,343
HT.ly 0.011 % 138

HASHTAGS
Then, the use of one or many hashtags.

criteria rt rate tweets
At least 5 0.031 % 198
At least 4 0.030 % 542
At least 3 0.028 % 1,269
At least 2 0.027 % 2,828
At least 1 0.026 % 7,348

MENTIONS
Same for @ mentions.

criteria rt rate tweets
At least 1 0.020 % 10,453
At least 2 0.017 % 2,984
At least 3 0.016 % 734
At least 4 0.016 % 268
At least 5 0.015 % 135

WORDS
I also found a few of the most retweeted words.

criteria rt rate tweets
inch/” 0.061 % 553
weather 0.046 % 526
snow 0.042 % 7,441
rail 0.043 % 1,175
$ 0.044 % 827

COMBOS
Finally, I tried to find the most effective combinations.

criteria rt rate tweets
twitter picture + “snow” + < 70 0.157 % 102
“inch” + “snow” + < 70 0.147 % 101
facebook link + “snow” + < 70 0.106 % 100
“snow” + NO mentions + < 70 0.096 % 745
instagram + “snow” + < 70 0.065 % 90

Yes, I know, the last one had fewer than 100 tweets, it was my only exception. Also notice that, despite having a bad rap, Facebook autotweets actually get a pretty hefty number of retweets.

So, want a lot of retweets? Keep it short, include a Twitter hosted picture, and talk about snow.


About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.

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