Rhetorical Velocity on Twitter

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While I have already been using Twitter for three to four years, only recently within the past year or two have I started to really pay attention to informative accounts. This is compared to only using Twitter for social means, such as only going through my friend’s tweets. Over the couple of years, I have definitely picked up on the trend of which tweets catch my eye and which don’t. In other words, I noticed which tweets have a high rhetorical velocity and which do not. Key features of tweets with a high rhetorical velocity are:

  • As few words as possible. People scroll through their feed at the blink of an eye. Most of the time, they only really read the tweets with few words so they can move on. A tweet that is using all 140 characters will most likely be passed over, unless the viewer is taking more time to reads his or her tweets than normal. In 2014, however, our world is moving incredibly fast, and so are people’s eyes down their twitter feed.
  • An image or video. There is no doubt that tweets with an image or a short video catch the attention of viewers more than those without an image or video. A combination of a minimal worded tweet with an image or video fits in with our style of living in the modern age.
  • Hashtags.
  • Rhetorical questions. Asking a question in a tweet pulls in the viewer more than a statement because everyone is obsessed with their opinion. They also like to see how their opinion weighs with opinions of other social media users. Asking a question then presenting a link draws in a viewer to the link.

Over the weekend, I found two tweets with high rhetorical velocity that pertain to my modified public issue: the condition of education in Mexico.

This tweet has a high rhetorical velocity because it has a picture, and it does not describe the entire interview. It simply provides one key aspect of the interview. The viewer is then drawn to the thought, “Well, what else did he have to say?”

This tweet also has a rhetorical velocity because it remains as simple as possible. It gives the what and the who, and then moves immediately to the link. The lesser complicated topic pulls in more interest.

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