So Social Media Week is drawing to a close and no doubt it has made a significant and lasting impression on all of us who have been fortunate enough to attend any of the numerous events and conferences or who heard any of the prestigious keynote speakers.
To mark the end of Social Media Week here at TheEmployable, we thought we would finish on a “Social Media” themed lighthearted note which has made an impression on us!

So without further ado, may we tell you the tale of @Sebuyama , resident writer for Japanese comedy website, Omocoro and his “Social Media Experiment”.

Impressed by the fact that they had just reached 10,000 followers on Twitter, the site’s Chief Editor, Harajuku called @Sebuyama into his office late one evening and asked him to do a little social media experiment to determine what type of tweets were most likely to be retweeted.
However he laid down a few ground rules:

– @Sebuyama had to use his own personal twitter account and tweet about whatever he thought would get some attention ( he had 2131 followers at the time.)
– Once @Sebuyama reached 1000 or more retweets, the experiment could end
– Only once these 1000 or more retweets were reached, could any of the followers be told about the experiment
– @Sebuyama had to stay in the office until the magical 1000 retweets were reached

Harajuku left for the evening and at 10 p.m. @Sebuyama’s experiment began  :

Tweet 1 : “Everyone! Please retweet this!”
Result : 52 retweets
Conclusion: Some people will retweet you if you ask nicely, even if there is no content

Tweet 2, 3, and 4 : Random bits of trivia
Result : 17 retweets
Conclusion : Tweets like this can be hit or miss but are very difficult to get retweeted

Tweets 5- 10 : As the night went on, he sent a few more tweets along the same lines.
Result : a few more retweets
Conclusion : It would be a long time before he reached his goal!

Tweet 11 sent at 11.a.m the next morning : “I’ll stick clothespegs on my body equal to the number of times this is retweeted and post a picture online.”
And then he took a little nap…..for 2 hours
Result: 1815 retweets!
Conclusion : Tweets like “ I’ll do …… the number of times this gets retweeted” get retweeted like no others!

@Sebuyama awoke to find his social media experiment had worked and true to his word, he covered his body in clothespegs, took a picture and posted it .

And then he went home…his social media experiment was complete!