Identifying behaviors that generate positive interactions between science museums and people on Twitter

While most museums maintain active Twitter accounts, few use the social media platform in a productive manner. This study provides a detailed examination of how science museums use Twitter and suggests changes these museums should make to improve their current approach on this social media platform. A total of 5278 tweets from 27 science museums were analyzed to determine what type of tweet yields the greatest impact measured in retweets and favorites. Of those, 1422 tweets were selected for additional analysis. The results indicate that tweets with educational content lead to the greatest number of retweets and favorites. Suggestions for existing museums to improve their use of Twitter, especially with respect to improving marketing-related tweets, were created using the results of this study.