Users Tagged

Since the beginning, Twitter has allowed users to tag others in tweets by using the "@" symbol. This lets them include more people in conversations, and alert others to topics of interest.

So do Twitter users make the most of this function?

Download full report (33 pages)

Engagement

Tagging other users does not significantly increase engagement.
Frequency

68% of tweets do not tag other users.
Old limit

Twitter previously limited users tagged to 10.
New limit

With the increased character count, this limit has also increased.

Users Tagged in Tweets

The vast majority of tweets (68%) do not tag other users (by using their "@" handle). This is not surprising - tagging others can be annoying and may lead to users being blocked.

The number of tagged users drops steadily until it reaches 10, where there is a slight jump (not visible in our graph). This is explained in the next section.

Note: We've removed retweets from these figures. We'll see whether tagging users increases engagements shortly.

Number of users tagged

Users tagged

Does Tagging Users Increase Engagement?

In short, the answer is no. Our Instagram Report found that tagging others was the most effective way to increase engagement. On Twitter, it doesn't appear to improve engagement rates at all.

See that spike at 10? Since 2014, Twitter users have had the ability to tag up to 10 other users in their tweets. And we see a significant spike in median engagement when a user tags 10 others.

In 2017, Twitter increased its 140 character limit, which also increased the number of users a person could tag. In future reports, we expect to see this spike at 10 decrease as a result. Download full report (33 pages)

Twitter engagements

Next chapter