Buddy Media says we're doing it wrong on Twitter

New research from Buddy Media says most marketers are missing the boat and posting to their Twitter feed in ways that users aren't full engaging with them.

Key findings:

1. "The Tweet Sweet Spot" is between 1-4 tweets per day. More than that, and you become the crazy man shouting at cars on the corner. But I was surprised that as many as 4 tweets per day still generated an average 60% engagement rating. It seems this social media thing is really involving, and might require some dedicated attention. Perhaps.
2. Weekends can offer better engagement opportunities than weekdays. Match this advice with the type of brand you are, though. Few brands in the survey used the weekend so the data set is smaller. Those that did, reported good engagement. Try it. It couldn't hurt. It might be a good opportunity to try a niche message for these more relaxed Tweeters.
3. Thursday is clearly the worst day for engagement at -10% engagement. People might have other things to do, finish up some reports before the week ends. How to get negative engagement is still a good question and we should ask Buddy Media to explain their Buddy Math.
4. Tweet with the sun: I really liked their graph comparing when users were on Twitter (during the day) vs. when they are willing to engage on Facebook (at night). I think this again indicates people are more receptive to business info (facts, data, news, etc.) on Twitter and more receptive to lifestyle-centered products and celebrity-centered discussion on Facebook.
5. Use #hashtags more often to show on others' feeds and attract more qualified followers. Use one or two, but never, ever use three. It says so.
6. Keep your Tweet tight at 100 characters. (that was only 40 characters!)
7. Use images. People love images, even if they have to click to get to them. According to research from HP Labs' Social Media Computing Lab (PDF), Sina Weibo, a leading Chinese microblogger, offers a significant opportunity for engagement because users can post images directly into the feed, like in Facebook.

   Graph shows Twitter users more engaged during day, and more engaged on Facebook at night.

8. Ask for the retweet. The study reported 32x higher rate of retweets when posters just put it in the Tweet: "Retweet please."

Retweet this please. Thanks to Todd Wasserman at Mashable for summarizing the findings well.