Miss Communications

What Makes a Tweet Retweet?

 

Recently Dan Zarella, who calls himself "The Social Media & Viral Marketing Scientist," studied millions of entries on Twitter to determine what makes a tweet retweetable. The results comprise a 22-page report, but a compelling and graphically enhanced version from Dan Macsai, an assistant editor at Fast Company, covers a lot of fascinating points.

What retweets and what doesn't? To a great extent, idle chat, including words such as "watching," "game," "bored," "gonna" and "sleep" scored low on the retweet scale; but standard social media fare, such as "check out," "blog post," "free," "social," "media" and "please retweet" scored high.

Most of the positive retweet dynamics, we're happy to report, include some mark of intelligence: For example, using actual punctuation improves retweetability (but stay away from the stodgy old semicolon), and retweeted material tends to have more syllables per word (which puts it slightly higher than random tweets on readability grade-level scales).

The report also covers URL shorteners, timing of tweets, parts of speech, original versus non-original content, and more. Read the Fast Company article here, and happy intelligent tweeting.

How to Complain

If you’ve never read “the world’s funniest complaint letter” – a pointed and lengthy bashing of one airline passenger’s on-board dining experience – you should immediately go there, work your way through the ghastly photos and hilarious text, and then come back here so we can discuss how to write a complaint letter of your own.

The Virgin Atlantic letter, which surfaced in January of this year, was written by Oliver Beale, an advertising executive who, while flying to London from Mumbai, found himself on the receiving end of a decidedly unpleasant meal. Beale took pictures of the various dishes, typed out his many disappointments, and sent his missive directly to Virgin CEO Richard Branson ("Sir Richard" to the Brits).

In his letter Beale bemoaned the “yellow shafts of sponge” he’d been served along with “green paste” and “a sour gel,” and he called up the hopes and disappointments of a child on Christmas – one who expected a wonderful gift but has found his own dead hamster wrapped in a box. “That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this,” Beale wrote, referencing yet another photo of yellow glop. 

The letter actually had an effect. Branson reportedly read it, called Beale to thank him for the tongue-in-cheek input and even invited him to participate in future taste tests for the airline.

Of course, most letters of complaint don’t work nearly that well, and it’s worth looking into what made this one a success – and what you can do to get some attention when you’ve got a complaint of your own.
 
First, Beale started on a positive note, writing that he loves the Virgin brand. That type of flattery may seem unnecessary in the average discussion of what’s gone wrong, but if you truly want to attract someone’s attention, first tell them something nice.

Second, Beale was specific. He didn’t vaguely suggest the food was beneath his standards or that it didn’t taste very good; he gave a precise account of each yucky course. If you’re trying to rectify a bad situation or let someone know where improvement is due, tell them exactly what you've witnessed, received or experienced and where your disappointment lies.

Third, Beale didn’t lay blame. Even with his amusing “No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato” and “How can you live like this?” Beale didn’t actually attack anyone for causing his discontent. While it’s often tempting to assail someone’s nasty behavior or inability to perform, you’ll get a better hearing if you avoid personal insults and stick to the facts.

Fourth, Beale wrote well. He wasn't perfect, and his Briticisms might throw some of us off (for one thing, we Americans would use a lot more commas), but altogether the writing was clear and generally correct. He didn’t leave his audience assuming these might be the rantings of a fool, and he didn’t give them reason to deride his comments.

Of course, the best thing about Beale’s letter was that it was an absolute hoot. The lesson? Write something people will actually want to read.

When Not to E-Mail

There’s an old saying that tells us when the only tool we have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the modern office, that tool seems to be e-mail. But the truth is, e-mail sometimes causes more harm than help.

Here’s a quick look at the top 10 situations when e-mail just won’t work.

#10 – You want to send a heartfelt thanks – or apology. If you want to show genuine gratitude, taking 10 seconds to tap out your appreciation won’t do. Go out of your way by thanking someone publicly, buying lunch, or sending a handwritten note. If you owe an apology, give it in person.

#9 – You haven’t spoken in a long time. Business relationships thrive on personal contact, but e-mail can be a barrier to real communication. Pick up the phone once in a while, or walk down the hall and say Hello.

#8 – Your request isn’t crucial to them. When you e-mail busy people with a request, don’t be surprised if they ignore you. If you really want to ask a favor, start a personal conversation, instead.

#7 – You have enormous files to attach. E-mail seems like a handy way to send huge files, but you could clog your recipient’s system, and spam filters can turn you away. Check with your correspondent to see about file-size limits, and post large items on Web sites or shared drives.

#6 – You want to keep it confidential. It takes only a couple of keystrokes to turn a private conversation into a public tumult. Remember: E-mail might feel hush-hush, but thousands of red-faced people have found that it’s not.

#5 – You need an immediate reply. Some people arrange every moment around what just popped into the inbox, but plenty of people don’t. If you need an answer quickly, chat, call, text or IM.

#4 – You’re trying to convey “This is important.” For many recipients, your e-mail is likely to be one of dozens that come in every day – or every hour. Unless your name or your subject line is the most important thing on someone’s list, it’s easy to get lost in the clutter.

#3 – Your subject is complicated. Trying to explain a million details can get lengthy and difficult in text. When you’re staring at the screen wondering how to start – or re-explaining the thing you thought you had covered before – switch over to talk mode to get immediate feedback on what’s not clear.

#2 – Things could get tense. Emotion is one of e-mail’s biggest weak spots, and it’s easy to read attitude into the simplest of statements. If the topic of your e-mail is painful – or if you suspect hard feelings could occur – call a meeting so that all parties can use voice, expression and body language instead of just text.

#1 – E-mail caused the problem in the first place. Most hammers have a claw that helps you pull out badly driven nails, but e-mail doesn’t work like that. Once you’ve delivered a bad pounding in e-mail – an insensitive message, an embarrassing statement to the wrong mailing list – you need to deliver your mea culpa in some other way.