What Factors Lead Social Media Users to Prefer one Twitter Post over Another?

WHAT FACTORS LEAD SOCIAL MEDIA USERS TO PREFER ONE TWITTER POST OVER ANOTHER?

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Data and discussion

Social media is a form of technology and with its changing nature, businesses and marketers find themselves deliberating on what social media sites to use and which of them will be most beneficial to the company (Newberry, 2016). Marketers and business people know that social media is the best marketing strategy that will best position their brands in the market. Aside from the fact that Twitter has a wide range of audience, it is fast-paced, easy to use and connect as well as concise (Egan, 2016). With Twitter, marketers are able to share their images and information such as through retweets.

49% of the monthly users on Twitter follow brands and companies while the other social media platforms only have an average of 16% (Jackson, 2015). This means that the tweeter users 49% of the tweeter monthly users prefer to follow brand tweets because it represents real-content. The Twitter users on weekends are even more because people are free and hence the tweets posted on weekends are more likely to be successful.

Figure one: Twitter usage demographics  

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Based on the above Twitter usage demographics, it is quite clear that Twitter’s main audience are aged below 40 years old (Newberry, 2016). The small bites of information shared on Twitter by marketers is hence effective since it is consumed quickly by the young generation. Twitter is also commonly used by the people in urban areas and they have more disposable income which is an advantage for most businesses. In addition to that, 80% of the youths prefer reading and retweeting shorter tweets than the longer once. In addition, research shows that over 50% of the Twitter users are attracted more by tweets with pictures hence these tweets are more likely to get more retweets and likes than one without a picture.

User interaction is also high in Twitter as the audience are engaged in almost every post. Research shows that for every 1 million Twitter followers, there are approximately 300 interactions (Jackson, 2015). This means that the Twitter users prefer following tweets from brands or companies that respond to their feedback (this is called connecting with influences). This is because the followers feel that you value them which is one of the unique practices of Uber.

Figure two: User interactions with brands’ posts as a % of brands’ followers