How mentioning others and posting links on your tweets attract more favorites and free likes

If you have been on twitter for some time now, you probably have already noted how people like mentioning others on their tweets. This is usually a way of getting more attention from the mentioned people as well as from people who follow the mentioned user. In most cases, mentioning a famous twitter user can help boost the viewership of your post than mentioning a less followed person. And if your post is funny, educative or generally attractive, you are likely to get more free likes and retweets than posting it with no names mentioned.
However, don’t always mention everybody. Naming a celebrity for instance can be a good way to get your tweets seen, but naming a highly active twitter user can get you even more free likes and retweets. This is because most people retweet and favorite your messages in the first few minutes by a storm and then reduce the speed as time goes by. Links on the other hand can get you more free likes and free followers especially if they are short and lead to an interesting story.