How To Retweet And Be Retweeted

Tweet and Retweet: A great way to share information with others

UPDATE:  I changed hosting companies since originally publishing this article, and ironically it removed the number of reweets from the plugin at the top of the post. You have to love technology sometimes!

One of the fastest and most effective ways of spreading information through Twitter is to retweet somebody.  When you see “RT” followed by a username in an update by one of your friends, that means they are retweeting somebody else…taking that person’s post and redistributing it to their own followers.  It’s rampant on Twitter, and one of the most common questions I get asked is, “what are some guidelines for retweeting, and how can I get retweeted more?”  I want to address both of those with some simple guidelines and suggestions.

How To Retweet

Retweeting somebody’s thoughts, links or pictures is the ultimate compliment on Twitter.  It says that you think enough of what they have written to share it with your followers, a pool of people that may be completely different than those of the original tweeter! It is a fantastic way to share information and ideas.  Of course you are free to retweet whatever you want, but here are some general guidelines that I think make it easier for you and those that follow you.

1. Keep it short. No need to write out “retweet” when RT will do just fine and most people will understand it.  The etiquette for this is “RT @username: the content of their original tweet”.  I very strongly recommend using a 3rd party app for Twitter as most of them let you retweet in just one click, you won’t have to retype everything like you do in the web interface.  My favorite desktop application is Tweetdeck, my favorite iPhone app is Twittelator Pro, and my favorite mobile browser “client” is Dabr.
   
2. Read what you share. Truly, this is one of my greatest annoyances…it’s very obvious when people don’t read what they retweet.  The two most painful cases of this are, first, when a person tweets a link to an article they liked and somebody retweets them within a minute or two; this isn’t nearly enough time to actually read the article! Second, I see a lot of people retweet others for #followfriday and they often are “recommending” people that they themselves do not follow.  It happens to me almost every Friday.  Please, read what you retweet, otherwise you are adding too much noise to the already busy Twitterverse.
3. Know your audience. You should have a good feel for what your followers are like…chances are, they are like you.  Naturally you are going to want to share things that are interesting to them, but in a global sense.  If all of your followers are your close, personal friends then this probably doesn’t apply to you; have at it and retweet whatever you want.  A lot of people have a mixed bag of followers that include personal friends and acquaintances online, as well as work colleagues and potential employeers.  Keep it real, keep it relevant.  Don’t retweet your 11 year old cousin’s rantings about the Hannah Montana movie just because you think they are cute…chances are nobody else will. (Confession: I saw the Hannah Montana movie this weekend and liked it.  Don’t judge me!)

How To Be Retweeted

1. 

   Some people, like @mayhemstudios, have tremendous RT power. Check Retweet Radar for others.

   Write good content. This is the number one rule for being retweeted, everything else can be worked around.  If you want to be retweeted, then write things that matter to the people that follow you.  Think about what you are interested in, what you are an expert at, or something that you have read that would be helpful to others. Short life updates, although they keep your followers informed about your daily goings-on, don’t make the rounds too often. “I just took my dog out to poop” probably isn’t going to get much retweet time.

2. Include links. Earlier this morning I saw a tweet that interested me, it was about a marketing survey. The problem, however, is that the tweet did not include a link to the article, only a vague reference that wasn’t even enough to Google.  If it had included a link I probably would have retweeted it, I think my followers would have found it very helpful.  As it is, I don’t even know if the statistics included in the tweet are true…a citation would be good.  Make sure you include links when referencing something that includes numbers, or is just interesting.  The best way to include links, since you are limited to 140 characters per update, is to use a URL shrinking service.  It takes a very long URL and makes it short.  I use Cli.gs the most, but also use TinyURL and Is.gd.
3. Know your RT character count. What do I mean by this? This is imporant, so please pay attention. Since Twitter updates are limited to 140 characters, it only makes sense that if you want to be retweeted you will need to write shorter updates than that to accommodate for “RT @yourname:”.  For example, if somebody clicks one of my post to retweet I know that it will take 17 characters (including spaces) to write “RT @mattsingley: “, so I need to keep my updates to 123 characters or fewer (quick math for you if you’re new around here: 140 (character max) – 17 (my RT count) = 123 (length of my posts)).  Just to test my theory about this, some time back I put up similar tweets with content and links, but with one set I exceeded 123 characters, and in the other I stayed under the limit.  I was retweeted 60+% more with the sub-123 character updates!

Good luck!  If you want to see some of the top retweeted info, my favorite site for this is Retweet Radar.  It lists trends, links and people that are being retweeted, and I’ve found some good information there.  If you have any retweet tips or tricks, I would love to hear about them.

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