I have made no secret of my absolute idol worshipping of one Dan Zarrella, who is known as the Social Media Scientist. In a field which is remarkably short of hard-nosed serious researchers cranking out reliable and verifiable scientific results, Zarrella has effectively adopted the mantle of the Einstein of online marketing. His superlative work in the arena of social media is that of legend, and it is always couched in layman’s language so you will never be confronted by a “Chi Squared Test Of Homogeneity” “Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient”, “Box & Whisker Plot” or “Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test” (is that for vodka?).

Through years at the feet of the undisputed master of Social Media Science, I have been grateful for his bestowal of many precious pearls of statistical wisdom, and have collected what I consider Dan Zarrella’s top 30 tips to mastering and dominating every major social network (All times Eastern zone.)

1. Tweets which total between 100 and 115 characters are 34% more likely to be retweeted.
2. Asking “Please ReTweet” is 12% more effective than “Please RT.”
3. Tweets with exclamation points get fewer clicks per follower but more retweets per follower.
4. If you identify yourself in your Twitter bio as an Official, you’ll have over 200 followers more than the average.
5. Twitterers with a picture set have 850% more followers than the ones which do not feature any images.
6. Tweets which contain one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted.
7. Some of the best terms to use to boost your click through rate on Twitter are: via, please, check, rt, and @.
8. Articles that mention Twitter obtain 230% more retweets than ones which mention Facebook.
9. Using the word video will gain 28% more shares on Facebook, but 32% fewer retweets.
10. Facebook posts with a high number of self-referential terms (me, I) get more likes.
11. Posts which are either extremely short or long get more likes.
12. Longer Facebook posts obtain more shares.
13. Very negative posts get more comments than positive posts.
14. The most shareable Facebook posts deal with sex. Now, is that really a surprise?
15. The most shareable term on Facebook is: Facebook! Another non-surprise.
16. The least shareable term on Facebook is: vs. Facebookers don’t like comparisons, apparently.
17. Use a lot of verbs if you want more Facebook shares but avoid adverbs as they can cut your sharing rate by over 5%.
18. Facebook posts which are written at a second grade elementary school reading level are shared more than 50% more than those written at sophomore university reading level.
19. Likes peak around 8 pm and shares around 6 pm.
20. Facebook posts on weekends receive more likes than those posted on weekdays.
21. If you use digits in your article title you’re more likely to gain Facebook shares for it.
22. The more you post negatively the fewer the number of your followers.
23. The most effective posting frequency is every other day. If you post more than twice a day you’re chopping your page likes by 22%.
24. The most connected terms on LinkedIn are: recruiters, networker, LION, monetization, connector, and salespeople.
25. The least connected words on LinkedIn are: Jesus, pastor, makeup, technician, surgeon, and psychotherapy.
26. Pinterest descriptions of approximately 200 characters receive more repins.
27. The most pinned words on Pinterest are love, home, and things, but the most repinnable words are recipe, chicken, and minutes.
28. Taller images are the most repinned ones.
29. The best time to blog is 7 am, the best time to receive blog comments is 8 am, and the most views occur at 10 am.
30. It pays to place an attractive photo as your primary image (Dan proves it with the one on his blog where he looks like a nerdy Chris Pine).

If you are one of the very few social media marketers who is not a regular reader of Dan Zarrella’s work, now is the best time to jump on the bandwagon. You can bet that your competitors are absorbing each and every word!