A Picture is Worth a Thousand Followers?

Most people fill their tweets with links and their whereabouts throughout the day for tweeple across the world to see.  Some tweets go unnoticed while others have headlines interesting enough to click the link that follows.  There is one type of tweet that seems to always gets attention.  No matter how long ago the tweet was sent and regardless if there is a message that follows, tweets containing a photo are irresistible.

A few days ago, I decided to put my theory to the test.  I took five photos and uploaded them to a test Twitter account.  At the time of posting the pictures, the account had only  38 followers and has been active for almost a week.  Three photos were posted right away, one an hour later and the last one was posted the very next morning.

At noon, I checked the view count, which totaled 150.  According to those numbers, that’s an average of 30 views per photo. With only 38 followers and an average of 30 views per photo, the response rate was higher than expected. Overnight the account gained 11 followers and six retweets.

Believe it or not, social media is a form of entertainment.  Think about the tweets you have read, then re-read because they made you laugh.  How much time have you spent following a conversation on Twitter that you were not participating in, but just wanted to see what someone was going to say next?

Photos uploaded to Twitpic or TweetPhoto are guaranteed to get your followers attention.  When you upload a photo, you are providing the visual to the multitude of tweets you have been sending for the past five months.  Photos allow people to peek into your world, through your eyes, and lets them voice their opinion or vote on whether they like it or not.

Pictures have the potential of attracting followers in a chain reaction sort of way. When you tweet a photo and one of your followers views and decides to comment (or vote via TweetPhoto) on it, their followers can see their reaction and are highly likely to click on the link to the picture.

One picture may attract some new followers, but don’t get dismayed if the follower growth is slow.  Pictures are a way you can interact with your followers and opens the door for some interesting responses. To some, Twitpic’s are their kryptonite. Twitter’s 140 characters may be limiting, but a picture is a voluble susbstitute.