Retweet That!

If you have spent any amount of time on Twitter, you probably already are seeing that a fair amount of the postings you read from the people you follow are retweets of messages that were originally posted by someone else. Obviously, the retweet is a form of liking or endorsing something. I see a message that resonates with me, and I express my favorable impression by retweeting. But there is probably more to the retweet than that, right? And, shouldn’t I be interested in having other people retweet my Twitter content?

Of course, retweeting content does allow me to endorse other Twitter participants. Retweeting also supports the people I follow on Twitter and lets them know that I appreciate that gems they are putting online for me and their other followers to read. Retweeting also is an easy way (some might call it “the lazy man’s way”) of putting meaningful or interesting content in my Twitter feed without expending much effort – you don’t have to type a single word, just click that retweet button (twice, just so it doesn’t happen by accident) and bingo, someone else’s scholarship, inspiration, or investigative journalism becomes part of your content stream!

In the great karmic swirl of the Twitterverse, retweeting others’ content may also get your own postings retweeted as well, and that can be a very good thing! Think about how this works. When someone who is following me retweets something I have posted, that retweet is seen by all of the people who follow them. This exposes a lot of new people to my thoughts and ideas, and as a result, they have the opportunity to decide to follow me and see everything I tweet in the future. They can also retweet the message they have read which just potentiates the effect and can lead to even greater expansion of my network. Do the math, if I have only 10 followers, but two of them retweet my message, and they each have 10 followers, I have now reached 30 people. If in turn, two followers of each of the second generation groups retweet my note, my reach has now grown to 70! It’s like multi-level marketing without the unpleasant parts.  The retweet feature of Twitter represents the best of viral communications.

If you are sold on the value of having your content retweeted, I’ve got some more good news for you. There are a lot of great suggestions for how to make sure your postings are passed along more often than random chance would dictate, and I am going to share a quick 10 of them with you. Like most “top X” lists, this is hardly exhaustive, and if you want to learn even more strategies, you will find that there is a lot out there on this topic. These just happen to be my own favorites.

1. Retweet messages from people  you follow (and people who follow you): Nothing encourages others to retweet more than getting their own content passed along. It is one of the golden laws of the Twitterverse.
2. Have good content on your Twitter feed: Nothing is more likely to result in a retweet than good content. Make sure your tweets are relevant, timely, interesting, and useful. Include images when you can. Tweet about things that match your passion. You are much more likely to be sending compelling messages if you follow these guidelines, and the people who read them will sense that.
3. Use links to other content: Including a link URL to an interesting study, article, or visual has been demonstrated to encourage more retweets. I’m more likely to pass along a message with an interesting article attached than just a random musing. Placement of the link is important too. Messages with the links toward the end are retweeted more than those with the link at the beginning.
4. Use hashtags: You know hashtags, those little words or phrases preceded by the “#” symbol that assist people in searching for relevant content or following a thread of related messages. Things like #Ferguson or #bancelebrityselfies and the like. Twitter data suggests that a message with a hashtag gets retweeted about 25 times more frequently than one with no hashtags. Makes it really worthwhile!
5. Length Matters: Tweets that are too long or too short get retweeted less than those that fall within the sweet spot of being about 70 – 100 characters.
6. Pick your tweet times: This is a hard one to quantify because different “experts” recommend different times of day. Some think first thing in the morning, some late at night, and some in the heart of the day. And, of course, this is all relative to your audience. If you have a lot of followers spread about the globe, you will be dealing with a moving target. My best advice is to test a few different days and times and then alight upon a schedule that both works for you and seems to result in the best “retweet quotient”.
7. Put some OOMPH into your message: Studies show that emphasis, such as putting a key word in all caps or adding a couple of exclamation points (really!!) will both draw readers’ attention to your tweet and communicate your own enthusiasm about the message. The more your messages are read, the more they will be retweeted. Do it!!!
8. Look for and use the “hot” keywords in your Twitter posts: Words most often associated with retweets include you, post, blog, social, media, free, help, follow, top, “check out” and 10 (as in “top 10”, I imagine). Use these words in your tweets and see what happens next.
9. Tweet about Twitter: Your readers are on Twitter when they read your tweets – they’re obviously interested in the platform. Tweets mentioning Twitter get retweeted three times as often as those mentioning Facebook, Instagram or other social media platforms.
10. Just ask: Finally, one of the most overlooked but effective way to get your message retweeted is to bluntly ask. “Please Retweet” (or the shorter version “Pls RT”) is 4 to 5 times as effective in getting your message passed along as not asking at all. Amazing!

So, there you are, my 10 best suggestions for garnering retweets on Twitter. If you want to engage more with the Twitterverse, get more followers, gain more readers or customers or just be a more integral part of the social network fabric, try a couple of these. Better yet, try them all. Happy Tweeting!

Get On Board On LinkedIn

If you have been reading my commentaries for very long, you probably already know that I am a big fan of LinkedIn. In fact, I consider it to be the most important social media platform on which I participate! Whether you are looking to establish an influential presence among your peers, connect with people around the world in mutually beneficial relationships, stay in touch with what is happening in the industries you follow, or use social media most effectively for B2B transactions, I favor LinkedIn above Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ of any of the other options.

Remembering some of the best advice I was ever given (thanks, Mom!) I also believe that “if you are going to do something at all, you should try to do it well”. Fortunately, there is no shortage of people out there who are willing to weigh in on what “doing it well” on LinkedIn means. In fact, there are so many good ideas that it may be hard for a new LinkedIn member to decide what – or how much – of the available advice they should take.

At the risk of adding another gallon of water to an already full pool, I am going to weigh in with my five best tips for getting started right on LinkedIn. If you are a newcomer, you may find this to be very helpful. Even if you have been spending time on LinkedIn for a while, I hope you might pick up a good idea or two as well.

YOUR PROFILE: This is where to start – I can’t overstate the importance of being as complete and thorough as you can be when developing your profile. For most of the people you will be connecting with on LinkedIn, this is your résumé. What they read here is all they will know about you when they consider connecting, or agreeing to connect with you if you send them an invitation. Make sure you don’t leave them wanting or wondering. Don’t forget to add a photo, it makes your profile 10 times more likely to be viewed!

GET OFF TO A GOOD START: Having a bit of a community behind you will be helpful when you start to make connections. Because LinkedIn is a large networking group, people need to know if a connection with you is going to bring them into contact with a sizeable number of new people, or if you are just going to ride on their coattails. Because of this, the connections number is one of the things a lot of people will look at closely when viewing your profile. Let’s face it, when you see anyone with 500+ connections, you can be pretty sure that this is a person who would be worth linking to.

BE RESPONSIVE: Remember, this is a “social network” for business people, so be social. When you send a request to someone for a connection, give them a reason to want to link up. When I receive a request that says “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”, my first question is “Why should I do that?” It seems too obvious, almost lazy. When someone says “I read over your profile and it sure seems like we seem to have a lot of common interests, like helping nonprofit organizations be the best that they can” I feel like this person has really taken the time to think before they reached out to me, and in turn I am more likely to respond in a positive way. Another opportunity for professional, respectful responsiveness arises if someone accepts your request for a connection. Don’t just smile and put another notch on your belt, send a brief thank you note to cement the new relationship. When you are on the other side of this equation, the same rule holds true. If you have decided to accept a link request, don’t just click the button. Take a moment to look at the requester’s profile, determine why you might actually want to be networked with this person, and send them a quick note thanking them for reaching out to you. The objective is not just to amass connections, but to develop meaningful relationships with people who will be beneficial to know.

BE ACTIVE IN GROUPS: I think that the real value of LinkedIn lies not primarily in the one-to-one connections you make (although these are of course critical), but in the LinkedIn groups. When you become an active participant in Groups, you can stay abreast of new developments, ask and answer questions, build your professional reputation, and – most importantly – dramatically amplify your reach. Even if you have 500 LinkedIn connections, which would put you in the top third of LinkedIn users by the way, you can probably find at least one group that deals with an area that is interesting to you which has 5,000 or 8,000 or even 10,000 participants. That means when you post in a group discussion your comment shows up to 10 or 20 times as many people as you are connected with. Great leverage! Invest some time in researching groups and finding those that are closest to your interests AND have a lot of active members.

Once you’ve joined some groups, participate! Read through the postings and respond when you have something to say. Even if you just click the Like button at the bottom of a comment to let someone know you appreciate their remarks or comments, you’ll get their attention. Be sure also to follow conversation threads so that you are updated when new comments are added. Keeping valuable discussions going is the best way we can all learn from each other on LinkedIn.

GOOD EDITING: This last idea is rarely mentioned in LinkedIn “how to” articles, but it might be the most crucial of all of the above. Not everyone is going to be the most creative or imaginative writer, but we can all take a little time to make sure that what we put down in writing is articulate, and that we use good sentence structure and correct punctuation. Write in your voice, using language that you aren’t even sure you understand will often result in communication that misses the mark. Write what you want, and then read what you’ve written before posting it for all of the world to see. Oh, and please, please use spell checking. In this modern digital age, there is no excuse for misspelled words. If you want to connect with the pros, write like a pro.

I hope these five ideas will get you off to the right start on LinkedIn. Come visit again, I plan to post some advanced LinkedIn strategies down the road. Happy Linking!