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!