Twitter is talk of the town right now and the topic that gets the most attention is the art of the retweet. Now we have people coming up with formulas on how to structure your Tweet so that it gets retweeted, not to mention scientific research on how to get retweeted.
If you want to get retweeted and this is way above your head, let me put things a little more simple. Let me explain.
In their book Made to Stick authors Chip and Dan Heath propose a framework that can help us communicate our ideas and make sure people remember them. Using their SUCCES framework (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible,Emotional, Story) to guide our thinking it also important to remember the “7 words or less” concept.
In 1956 cognitive psychologist George A. Miller suggested that humans have a powerful short-term working memory, it appears to have finite capacity. The formula he came up with to explain this capacity was 7+/- items. Decades later is was determined to be roughly 2.5 seconds of information.
What this means is that in order for your message to remembered and be worthy of mention (retweeted), you need to structure your messages in 7 words or less.
Twitter is a great example of a tool that puts this concept to the test. With only 140 characters to write your message, you have to get to the point. To date the best formula that I’ve found to work is to keep it short and say something interesting. Nothing complex about that!
With consumers getting bombarded with messages that want their attention every second of the day, getting their attention is a challenge. But using the SUCCES framework to get our ideas across is in a short (7 words or less), simple and concrete way we stand a better chance at getting theirs and everyone’s attention.
Key takeaway: People are better at remembering messages with 7 words or less.
Is there a different formula you follow to get more retweets?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Recent Comments