The best tweets of 2013?

This past April we started using a tool called Argyle Social to schedule, monitor and track social media. One of the platform's biggest selling points was its advanced analytics dashboard, which makes it possible to track progress across various campaigns and social platforms instantaneously.

So, with the end of 2013 just around the corner, I exported all of my tweets between April and today. The top 4 tweets with the most retweets were from Typhoon Haiyan - no surprise there, as CARE was prominently mentioned in the media coverage of this emergency.

However, once I filtered out the Typhoon Haiyan emergency tweets, I was quite surprised to find this was our most retweeted tweet, with 133 retweets and 348 clicks:

If you have money in your wallet & a bit in the bank, you're among the top 8% of the world's wealthiest people. http://t.co/FAfLbjcJ84
— CAREUSA (care.org) (@CARE) July 8, 2013

This was rather disappointing, as this tweet doesn't mention anything about CARE. It links over to an infographic that isn't by us or about us. Our poverty-fighting work, at least in theory, is why people follow us in the first place. So what's the draw?

What's unique about this tweet is that it's not about CARE - it's about you. You are the focus of this tweet, and let's face it, it makes you look pretty damn fortunate, and probably feel pretty good.

I checked Google Analytics in that same time frame to see which tweet sent the most traffic to our site. When I again filtered out the Typhoon Haiyan tweets, this was the winner with 1,382 visits - more than twice that of the second place tweet:

This 12-year-old was so excited about her new clothes, she didn't ask what they were for until it was too late: http://t.co/W4HQAJtbKc
— CAREUSA (care.org) (@CARE) December 16, 2013

What's so compelling about this tweet? Simple. It's Upworthy-style linkbait. While the tweet itself doesn't mention anything about CARE or our work, it promises an interesting story, or at least an answer to the implicit question: what could the ulterior motive behind this shopping spree possibly be?

Eleni, the girl mentioned in above tweet. Read her story. Photo: 2013 Laura Hill/CARE

While we all wish telling our supporters to simply click over to our site to learn more would be enough motivation to do so, the truth is we exist in a crowded space with a lot of competitors. We have to find a way to stand out amid all of the noise.

As we begin planning social media and web campaigns for the new year, how can we merge these worlds? How can we talk about our work in a way that puts our supporters front and center while still informing them of our needs and taking credit for our accomplishments? How can we put a little bit of mystery and intrigue into our communications while still conveying the key components of our impact? Tell me your ideas in the comments below!