Why Favourite Tweets?

The biggest compliment one of your tweets can get is a retweet. The second best is quite possibly a “favourite” (though personally as it’s SOCIAL media, I’d like an engaging chat about the content of the tweet, but a favourite is fine too).

I was asked a couple of weeks ago by a twitter friend and blogger to explain the reasons why people favourite tweets.

Twitter itself suggests that favourites “are most commonly used when users like a Tweet. Favouriting a Tweet can let the original poster know that you liked their Tweet, or you can save the Tweet for later”. But here’s my take on it, I’d love to hear why you favourite tweets too!

1. It’s the twitter equivalent of a Facebook “like” its just a great tweet. Funny, insightful, moving. I want to either “save” it so I can read the witticism or wisdom again in the future or just show my appreciation for it right now.

2. It’s a simple thank you without the need to tweet a real thank you. Often used at the end of a twitter-chat to signal appreciation for the conversation, which has now reached its natural but amicable end. Or just saving the chat to refer back to later.

3. To act as a reminder to do something or to reply later when you have all the information you need to respond properly. Something like a to do list.

4. It contains a link to some content that I want to refer to in the near future or a long read or a video that I don’t have time for just this minute. Twitter is so fast paced at times, it’s very useful to be able to bookmark tweets to read when you’ve got more time on your hands.

I asked my followers on Twitter why they favourited tweets, and a large number of responses suggested that they favourited tweets on their mobile when they were out so they could read them later on their home computer. Twitter with its 140 characters is ideally suited for reading on a smartphone but a 1000 word article can be a bit tiresome.

Within the last month or so, there has been a huge rise in the number of “strangers” favouriting tweets. This is a new way that spammers try to grab your attention and get you to follow them. If a stranger favourites a tweet and you look at their profile, it’s usually really easy to see who is genuine and has just stumbled across your brilliant tweet, and who is a spammer (relatively new account, oddly written bio, hardly any followers etc). You can’t stop people favouriting your tweets unless you have a private profile, but if it really bothers you then you can block them.

It’s also worth noting that Klout counts favourited tweets as an indicator of quality and influence. So if your tweets are attracting favourites it can help to bump your score up.

So what are your reasons for favouriting tweets?