Rhetorical Velocity in Child Obesity Tweets

When searching for tweets with the highest rhetorical velocity, there seemed to be a reoccurring trend on all of the accounts that I looked at.  Pictures had more retweets and favorites than just tweets that featured text.  The tweets that were solely text and received a lot of attention featured short bits of information and usually included a hashtag.  Also, any tweet that involved a famous person was very popular.

This tweet from the NFL Play 60’s Twitter received the most retweets and favorites from any others I saw on the page.  This is most likely a result of Heath Miller, a well-known tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, being featured in the photo.  Since this tweet is a picture of a famous person it combines two of the trends for increased rhetorical velocity that I had noticed.

This tweet from the Health Corps Twitter page features a hashtag and short, informative statements.  The hashtag helps the tweet to reach other users of Twitter who don’t follow their account but are interested in preventing obesity.  The use of the simple statement about taking a walk after dinner makes it more likely that readers will want to read the tweet.

For my first tweet I used the strategy that the NFL Play 60 Twitter used.  I involved a famous person into my tweet by including a picture of them.  By using the hashtag #beyonce the tweet can reach a huge variety of people on Twitter since she is so popular.  

My next tweet was also a photo of a quote said by Michelle Obama about her ‘Let’s Move!’ campaign.  I used a picture because the quote was way over the 140 character limit.  I think using a picture of the quote was a good move since it seems more inviting and easier to read.  By using the hashtag #michelleobama it once again opens the audience of the tweet to a wide variety of people.

For my third tweet I decided to use short statements (questions in this case) and image associated with my link to capture the attention of the audience and hopefully gain some rhetorical velocity.  

My fourth tweet features a graphic of statistics about the stages of child obesity.  I think a graphic helps the audience view statistics without getting bored from just looking at a bunch of numbers.  I used the hashtags #PreventChildObesity and #actnow to reach an audience larger than just the followers of my account.

My last tweet I decided to forego using an image and focus on using intriguing text to get the attention of the audience.  Using a question draws in the audience, makes them curious, and hopefully makes them want to retweet the tweet to share the trivia with their followers.

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