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Twitter Study: Photos, Videos Lead To Most Retweets

Matt McGee on March 14, 2014 at 2:03 pm

Tweets that have a photo or video URL tend to lead to the biggest increase in retweets for verified accounts on Twitter.

That’s the key takeaway from a Twitter study out this week that analyzed more than two million tweets sent in the span of one month from verified accounts related to TV, news, radio, government and sports. Twitter’s data team looked at measurable tweet elements like photos, hashtags, videos, links and numbers (to measure tweets with sports stats and scores), and then compared its results to the baseline count of retweets that these accounts typically get.

Overall, Twitter’s study found that tweets with photos and videos produced the biggest jump in retweets — 35 percent for photos and 28 percent for videos.

But, that wasn’t true in each of the verticals that Twitter looked at. As you can see below, TV-related accounts saw more retweets when their tweets included a quote. And for both sports and government accounts, using a hashtag led to more retweets than videos, quotes and numbers.

Since this study was focused only on verified accounts in specific verticals, the results may not apply across the board. But they do validate other studies that have found similar results about the benefits of using visuals in social media posts.

As always, whatever industry/vertical you’re in may see different results, and it’s smart to do your own testing to see what resonates best with your audience.

About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.