Opinion: Social media wrap: Cooley, Bloomberg, McCain take note: More than two-thirds of tweets are ignored

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Politicians have cottoned on to this Twitter-thingamabob-wotsit in a big way recently.

Unfortunately, some are taking tweeting to its illogical extreme by sending dozens of tweets in a short period of time, often concentrated in a few hours or during a particular event.

Such as California attorney general hopeful Steve Cooley, whose staff tweeted an almost unbelievable 25 times during his hourlong debate last week with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, and then disappeared off the Twitter radar.

Memo to Cooley’s staff: Twitter users don’t like this kind of behavior, according to a recent study highlighted here by the Ticket.

Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg has also jumped on the repetitive tweeting bandwagon, as has Arizona Sen. John McCain (chats with Snooki excepted).

So is it any wonder that a new social-media study reveals that 71% of tweets are ignored?

A survey of 1.2 billion tweets sent between August and September 2009 by Canadian-based social-media analytics firm Sysomo suggests that more than two-thirds of tweets passed their audiences by with ...

... no reaction, Wired magazine reports.

Just 6% of posts were then retweeted, with some 92% being retweeted within the first hour. After that, they become Twitter tumbleweed.

The survey further revealed that, of the remaining 25% or so of tweets that were acted upon, 85% get just one reply, 10.7% get two, and just 1.53% get three replies.

Check out a video presentation of these pretty astonishing results. That means you, Cooley, Bloomberg, McCain, et al.

-- Craig Howie

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