Only 47% of retail brands engage on Twitter when tagged in an @mention, according to a recent report from Brandwatch.

The report was based on data from an experiment conducted by Brandwatch in which 100 retail brands based in the United States and the United Kingdom were tagged in a series of different types of @mention tweets (questions, comments, complaints, etc.).

Brands responded to 65% of the Twitter mentions that included a direct question, compared with just 29% of mentions that did not include a question.

Although direct questions were more likely to generate a response from retail brands than neutral comments, the response time was much slower; brands took over two and a half hours (157 minutes) to respond to mentions that included questions on average, compared with around an hour for mentions without questions.

Only 5% of brands responded to @mention questions within 15 minutes, and just 11% responded within an hour.

About the research: The report was based on data from an experiment conducted by Brandwatch in which 100 retail brands based in the United States and United Kingdom were tagged in a series of different types of @mention tweets.