I analyzed thousands of tweets and this is what I found
Your clicks tell a story. Your interests. Your problems. What you think is funny. I looked at your clickthroughs on my tweets for the last 12 months. With over 100,000 followers, your clicks tell a fascinating story with a few surprises.
1. The Top-Clicked Twitter Link of 2014-2015 (1988 clicks)
Tweet ThisLink: j.mp/12hYfnI
Richard Byrne, author of Free Technology for Teachers, wrote the top clicked post. A teacher asked him how to make a collaborative multimedia collage. He suggested Thinglink , a tool adored by special needs teachers.
This tweet teaches:
This was the most clicked-through tweet of this past school year. Nothing on this tweet can show you just how many people clicked on it. Focus on what HELPS. If you focus on retweets, you might accidentally be focusing on the echo chamber. No wonder teachers get frustrated! They want useful stuff, not just pretty pictures.
- You can’t look at tweets and KNOW what interests teachers. That tweet has only 6 retweets and 8 favorites. It had almost 2,000 clicks!
- Teachers are helping students collaborate online.
- Bloggers who answer teacher questions are helpful.
- Good questions asked to the right person can help thousands.
2. Sketchnoting (1745 clicks)
These were three different tweets. Don’t cry foul! They were all about sketchnoting. I added the word “Awesome!” and tweeted the first tweet again.
Link: http://j.mp/1EW9tyW
I found this resource by Smashing Magazine when learning how to sketchnote. It helped me. I tweeted it.
Link: http://j.mp/1PGHXHZ
Popular sketchnoting app, Paper by 53, created a community for sketchnoters. I wrote a blog post with resources.
- Sketchnoting is being studied by educators.
- As you research, share helpful links.
- If you blog, tweet links to posts more than once .
3. We Want to Be Memorable(1734 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/1sRTOGB
Lori Gard shared this letter to a new teacher on an Edutopia discussion forum. She wrote this post in January 2014 on her own blog. It went viral. She reposted it on Edutopia in December 2014.
- Teachers want to be remembered.
- I tweeted this three times: Dec 2014, Jan 2015, May 2015. Some people think that when they tweet something once, that is enough. Only a small number of people see each tweet. If something is helpful, share it again.
- Lori was savvy. She cross posted. She took this from her blog and shared it on Huffington Post. Then, she shared at Edutopia.
- I found this post looking at the most shared box on the right-hand side of Edutopia. Take time to look at popular posts on your favorite websites. Read them for inspiration. Share them to be helpful.
4. Motivational Posters (1033 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/122C3hi
This poster was shared as part of the original tweet. Twitter and Facebook users seem to share posts with photos.
These quote posters were made by Be Happy and shared by My Modern Met.
- Educators like quotes.
- I found this post through the suggested posts on Buffer.
- My Modern Met shared popular quotes from another site. Look at other sites for helpful ideas. Typically, the link to Be Happy should be at the first mention of their name. Modern Met didn’t do that. I did bother me a bit, but if BeHappy is happy, who am I to say.
- Posts with graphics get shared more. If you want your tweets to be noticed, include graphics.
5. Contests for Schools (734 clicks)
AWESOME CONTESTS: Calling Teachers and Students: 10 Ways to Win for You and Your School http://j.mp/1CvfP70 via @discoveryed
This tweet is a collection of contests curated by Discovery Education. They posted this on February 4. I tweeted it the same day.
- Teachers are eager to do what they can to earn free things for their classrooms.
- Discovery Ed is one of the organizations on my secret VIP list in Twitter. I do this for 2 reasons: I’m a Discovery STAR Educator and sharing is what we do. Secondly, I trust Discovery’s content. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have shared it so quickly.
- Make sure tweets are up-to-date. You’ll notice that I didn’t put the list above in a tweet box. I don’t want you to tweet it. It isn’t current. Every contest date has passed. Never ask people who trust you to tweet old stuff.
- Notice the all caps. I still gave credit to Discovery at the end. While retweeting is fine, if it is really awesome, tell people why.
6. Everything You Need to Know About Sugar (591 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/16KMjwv
Many of us are obese.We’re looking for answers. The problem is that scientists don’t even agree. This post on the Atlantic examines sugar.
- Educators care about good health.
- This is another item I found via the Buffer App’s suggested topics.
- Note that the title of the post “Being Happy with Sugar” is different from the text in the tweet. Try different versions of the title on Twitter.
- Educators have diverse interests. We want to live better lives.
7. Productivity (525 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/1pSCN2J
The Institute of the Future Think Tank says it well:
“We each have only one pair of eyes and ears, and more importantly, one mind to deal with the data.”
This blog post interviews Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek on the Barking Up the Wrong Tree blog. This blog uses science to help readers live a more awesome life.
- Many of us consider ourselves unproductive. The post cites research that “people work an average of 45 hours a week; they consider 17 of those hours to be unproductive.” Time is precious. We want to use time better.
- Numbered lists get reshared.
- Another bufferapp suggested post find. (See a pattern?)
- The layout of the post is easy to read.
8. iPad Creativity (515 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/1vS5zCK
Leah Levy’s post on Edudemic is a nice summary. Certainly, it is an excellent example of best-practice for curators of content.
- iPads are popular. (You didn’t need me to tell you that.)
- Educators like lists. (Again.)
- RSS is useful. I found this in my Feedly reader. It has a handy icon that shows you how popular articles are. This makes it easy to find content if you’re in a rush.
- Know “fan” hashtags to be helpful to them. (But don’t spam. That is not cool.)
9. Inside the Movement to Throw Out Grades (483 clicks)
Link: http://cctea.ch/ecm-125http://cctea.ch/ecm-125
This is a link to an Every Classroom Matters show. Or, at least it was. The site was upgraded and the link broke. I fixed the link with a new one above. This show conversation with Starr Sackstein and Mark Barnes discusses how “throwing out grades” works in the classroom.
- Controversial topics spark curiosity. Vet carefully. I hosted this show, so I felt confident in what I was sharing.
- Check your links every time, even if you have used it before. Web sites change. Check your links.
- You’ll notice a link starting in “cctea.ch“. I bought that domain name. Why, you ask? I bought the shortest name I could ti use for link shortening. (Domainr helped.) I used bit.ly’s Branded Short Domain service. For someone who likes statistics (like me) there are some geeky stats I can use now. (Remember, how I said in #1 that what educators click on is more important to me than retweets? I want to know what is HELPFUL. Retweets can increase clicks. But many times retweets are sound bytes, not something useful to make me a better teacher. No soundbyte ever made me a better teacher. Best practices do.)
- Looking at the show statistics on the BAM Radio website, you can’t see how popular this show was. Look at stats but make up your own mind whether something is worth sharing.
10. How to Use Handwriting in Google Docs (474 clicks)
Link: http://j.mp/1HHJF9l
Richard Byrne is my go-to edtech geek. He shares how to use handwritten responses in Google forms.
- Google Docs is a popular tool.
- Read the post to see what a generous blogger looks like. Richard Byrne gives credit. Notice how he cites John Stevens and the developer of the g(Math) add on for Google Docs, John McGowan. Great bloggers are generous. The people who steal stuff are scum. (There are some popular bloggers out there who are stealing other people’s content. I may not out them, but I sure won’t tweet them if I know they are doing it.)
Other Popular ClickThroughs from the Last 12 Months
| Tweet | Clicks | This Tweet Teaches: |
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393 | Curating lists of people is helpful to overwhelmed, busy educators. I trust Larry, so I followed everyone he recommended. |
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386 | Another popular Every Classroom Matters show |
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384 | Google is hot, but this post was from a designer, not an education source. I tweeted it to #gafe – Google apps for Education. |
| Link: http://cctea.ch/1czGRiw | 377 | One of the most popular posts I’ve written in the past year. |
| Link: http://j.mp/1qmVhqe | 374 | My new book Reinventing Writing is popular. I’ve made videos and resources that I’m giving away for free on this topic. |
| Link: http://j.mp/1FbPj3a | 359 | Helpful graphics from independent sources are helpful. Another great one from Richard Byrne. |
| Link: http://j.mp/1xQXytB | 343 | A cool tool. There are people who copy tweets from others without giving credit. If you have time for that, this tool helps. |
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342 | Educators look for new ways to use older tools. |
| Link: http://j.mp/19CC9Qg | 335 | Educators want help finding apps. This was also promoted by the cool folks at AppoLearning. You can search by grade level. Very cool. |
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331 | Another mega-list by Larry Ferlazzo. |
| Link: http://j.mp/1QCP0Sx | 327 | Another cool comparison graphic shared by Richard Byrne |
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325 | Educators struggle to communicate with parents. |
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321 | Copyright and problems like hotlinking are often clicked. People want trusted sources of digital citizenship info and Richard Byrne wrote a mega-simple post. |
| Link: http://j.mp/1C1cEza | 310 | The two pieces I wrote for Intel on Chromebooks remain wildly popular even 1 year later. |
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302 | Rewordify is a popular tool. Now that Google is no longer supporting reading levels, we need these tools. Larry Ferlazzo wrote this helpful list. |
How did I get these numbers?
I use the Bufferapp to schedule tweets. This way, I can write tweets for the next few days in one sitting. So, when I’m teaching, I’m focusing on my students. I DO NOT tweet during the day unless traveling or on break. Buffer tweets for me when I’m doing other things.
Buffer gives me fantastic analytics. If I put on my business hat, popularity is like a mini focus group.
There’s only one problem. Sometimes I’ll use Hootsuite or Commun.it. When I tweet other places, I can go to bit.ly to get stats on overall clicks but they may not be from just tweets. So, I try to tweet from buffer as much as possible.
If you want to go back more than 90 days, you have to pay. (I’m on the $50 awesome plan. That is how much I depend on Buffer.) This is one of those few tools I pay for. If you’re not going to pay, you can still get analytics for the last 90 days. But if you’re just tweeting casually, the free plan and 90 days is enough.
Here’s the spreadsheet I downloaded to create this post: Buffer Stats for @coolcatteacher Click Through
The post Here’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what educators are clicking on like crazy appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.
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