Over two-thirds of comments on Twitter go without response, with the first hour being critical to a Tweet’s lifespan, according to new research. Sysomos, maker of social media analysis tools, researched 1.2 billion tweets over two months and reported results that appeared less than influential on a worldwide scale.
Of all the tweets produced, the majority, 71 percent, received no response (retweet). Of the 29% of tweets that produced a reaction, 19.3% were retweets and the rest replies. This means that of the 1.2 billion tweets examined, 6%, (or 72 million) were retweets. The study found that of all tweets that generated a reply, 85% have only one reply. Another 10.7% attracted a reply to the original reply – the conversation was two levels deep.
12/10/2010
Only 1.53% of Twitter conversations are three levels deep – after the original tweet, there is a reply, reply to the reply, and reply to the reply of reply.
Sysomos also discovered that 92% of retweets take place within the first hour after broadcast.
Just 1.63% of retweeting takes place in the second hour after broadcast and a tiny 0.94% in the third.
A particularly surprising finding was that, of the 1.2 billion tweets Sysomos analyzed over the last two months, only 29% prompted a reaction, be it a reply or retweet.
One way to increase exposure of tweets is to send them out several times throughout the day, particularly if you have followers in different time zones.
There are tools available, such as TweetoClock.com or WhenToTweet.com, that calculate the best time to Tweet a follower.
www.sysomos.com