November 30, 2010

Hashtag Analytics: Part 5 = All We Need Is Love

In prior posts, we learned that #blogchat participants who only participated in one of the previous four weeks had low "engagement rates" (engagement = probability of participating in the following week):

We can mine the information, and see if there are participants who will engage again!

Let's look at re-engagement rates among those with only one week of participation, by number of tweets:
Ok, now we're getting somewhere!  Engagement rates go sky-high if the person tweets at least two or more messages.

But what about those folks who only tweet one time?  Is there anything within that audience that can be mined?

I want you to look at the line that says "re-tweet".

If the person issues one tweet, and only participates once over a four week stretch, and that one tweet is a "re-tweet" of information tweeted by somebody else, then the person has a very low engagement rate.  And that is a sad thing, because the person who issued the original tweet benefits from having a first-time user re-tweet his/her message.

But the person issuing the re-tweet?  They are the least likely to re-engage.

Except for one little thing!

Look at the last two lines in the table ... here, I split the re-tweet line into those who were "acknowledged" for the re-tweet, and those who weren't?

What do you see?

If the person was acknowledged, the person has a 62% chance of re-engaging.

If the person was not acknowledged, the person has a 6% change of re-engaging.

What a finding!

If you are participating in #blogchat, and you are lucky enough to have somebody re-tweet your message, and you find out that you don't know who this person is, then do something simple.
  • Thank the person for re-tweeting your message!
The data strongly suggests that a simple act of kindness dramatically increases engagement rates among first-time participants.

That's an important finding!

4 comments:

  1. Hi Kevin,

    Thank you for a great post that affirms the power of gratitude. I try to thank everyone who shares my tweets and blog posts because it is the right thing to do.

    As a long time participate in and student of social media activity, I've noticed that some people ignore retweets and comments unless they are from members of their inner circle. Or, worse, they don't allow comments on their blogs.

    When they do that, they lose the opportunity to connect with people on a one to one basis. It's sad because that is the primary benefit of social media. Without it, participation is decidedly one way.

    I love your post and hope that it encourages people to be genuinely grateful when someone amplifies their voice.

    Debra (@wilsonellis)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kevin

    Now I understand why you always take pain to thank people who mention/retweet you! I should have suspected that it was all analysis-based behavior!

    Awesome series. Got the hashtag book and will study it over the Holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The numbers support the behavior, and morals support the behavior!

    ReplyDelete

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