May 20, 2009 118 Comments

Spread Your Wings- Get More Retweet Action Today

birds Twitter offers a great way to get your information spread far and wide: the retweet. Simply, if you say something interesting or useful on Twitter, other users re-post the information, giving the original poster credit for the information. Some users are well known for their ability to find good information and share it. I’m thinking of @mayhemstudios and @ed, for instance. But it’s not just having good information that gets you retweeted. There are things to consider. Here are some ideas.

Making Re-Tweet Ready Posts

  • Make sure your post info has room for your original info plus a retweet. If your original post is close to 140 characters, the person retweeting has to edit your post to send it back out. Smells like work? People won’t make extra effort to retweet you if they have to edit your posts.
  • Make sure you use URL shorteners like bit.ly or is.gd or ow.ly (there are dozens) to get back more of your real estate.
  • If you’re going to tweet a URL, give folks a sense of what they’re clicking into. For instance, I use (video) or (youtube) when pointing to a YouTube video. And make sure you use (NSFW) on things that are Not Safe For Work.
  • The more helpful or entertaining your tweet, the more likely people will take an action.
  • The more jumbled with @ names and multiple urls and hashtags your tweet is, the less likely it will be retweeted.
  • People will gladly retweet causes (unless you fatigue us).
  • Starting a tweet with an @ means that a good chunk of folks won’t see it.

That’s a pretty good start to getting your re-tweet on. But you know what? There’s more.

And Now, the Bonus Round

  • Retweet other people and promote other people 15x to every 1 time of your effort.
  • Don’t tweet every damned thing you write about or do. Folks will fatigue quickly.
  • Befriend and add value to the best retweeters. It’s a live network, a human network, a give-and-take relationship.

That’s it. That’s how I do it.

What about you? How are you getting it done?

Photo credit Mike Baird

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  • YourJobMyOffice

    As a relative novice, I've found that participating in tweetchat gets me rt'd. The value for me is that the audience is actively listening bcs the topic matters to them. Knowing the rt is being read puts me one step ahead, no?

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  • http://deanholmes.me deanholmes

    I agree with most of the comments here. I do read the content and mix a blend of RT's by power users as well as my own tweets at a 15:1 ratio (at least).

    I do notice a major increase to my blog http://deanholmes.me when I retweet a power user – as well as views on my Twitter Profile. Content and timing are key here – get your mix right and you could get rt'd often as well.

    Thanks Chris.

  • http://twitter.com/OrganicGuru June

    Good article for newbie Tweeps. I view twitter as one big online chatroom so I tend not to get bent by every tweep that is made. It is fairly simple, if you don't want to read what someone tweets, don't follow him or her.

    Happy Tweeting!

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  • http://gruvr.com/ music map gruvr guy

    retweets would be SO much easier – and propagate so much faster – if twitter had a native RT button built in. A native RT function would put the “RT from” metadata below the actual post text, where it belongs – so you wouldn't have to think about making room for the 'retweet' text and extra handle, as you describe above. one-click viral propagation, and voila, easy to track metadata about propagation of any given message.
    Wouldn't it be nice?

  • socialscience101

    I disagree Chris.
    You haven't seen the research, yet.
    We're slow to publish, sure, but give us a chance to give you the real data.
    And these five points are not exactly what we seem to be seeing.

  • http://lynettecornell.com/ bestieverdid

    I agree with Rachel, I find “plz RT” obnoxious unless it's for charity or good cause. If it's good enough to be RT-ed, people will RT it.

  • http://www.bdv-unix-skills.co.uk/ Vince Stevenson

    We can all help each other with RTs. Be generous with them. Rgds Vince

  • http://lynettecornell.com/ bestieverdid

    I first found about Chris when he retweeted an article I had written for Mass High Tech. The story skyrocketed on the “most read stories” list for that day, which prompted me to ask “Who is this Chris Brogan?” Turns out, he's a pretty cool guy. :)

    Power users are great for people who are less known but who are still churning out great content to be noticed.

  • http://www.infusionsoft.com Joseph Manna

    Good advice. I find that this is a basic primer to getting retweeted. Another rule to live by is to post quality stuff. People care about quality and will retweet good stuff, crap will naturally flow off my timeline.

    ~Joe

  • KeithBurtis

    I think the 15-1 ratio of Re-tweets doesn't mean much. People just re-tweet to do it. Ive asked people if they have actually looked at the article or video or whatever link they are spreading. Most of the time they have not. Is that real Karma or fake recommendations to fake friends?

    • http://www.jermaineyoung.com Jermaine Young

      You are right. I think some people simply retweet for the joy of retweeting. They may skim the title but they are posting more out of habit than any thing substantial.

  • http://www.billhartzer.com/ Bill Hartzer

    Great post, I'm always trying to get more retweets, and this is very helpful. Tell them what they're going to see when they click the link…I'm retweeting this, though.

  • http://twitter.com/LazyJulie Julie Baker

    This was incredibly helpful. Thanks!
    Julie

  • http://socialmediaunraveled.com philipnowak

    I agree with different points that Steve, Rachel and “bestieverdid” made. It really depends on what the tweet is about. For example: If a musician has a concert or gig coming up, that's a great use of Plz RT. Another example: if a political candidate such as Thomas Castillo (@ThomasCastillo) has a parade or fundraiser coming up, that is also a great use of Plz RT.

    A horrible use of Plz RT is if you are trying to make a topic trend of Twitter. Another horrible use of Plz RT involves any spam tweets such as “How to Gain a Billion Twitter Followers in 90 Days.”

  • http://www.newforbaby.com/ Leigh

    I love how re-tweeting is basically like small town gossip (the good, helpful kind!), in an endless online world…
    Feeling connected and sharing good info with others will never be just a fad.

  • http://socialmediaunraveled.com philipnowak

    Daniel, you bring up a great point actually. Depending on the content of the tweet, sometimes you don't want the RT @PhilipNowak to get in the way of the quote, article title, joke, etc… (Via @PhilipNowak) at the end of a tweet is a perfectly acceptable variation and I use it quite often.

    Be careful with the @ChrisBrogan is looking for because Twitter considers that to be an @reply to Chris Brogan, thus only the users that are following the two of you will see the tweet. A better option is to say: Everyone! @ChrisBrogan is looking for…

  • Guest857486834

    Seriously? This is the type of fluff that allows this bloke to be considered a “Social Media Guru”? I mean, this is solid advice, but Jesus Christ Almighty … I expected more from this git.

  • http://buhlerworks.com/wordpress jebworks

    Solid advice on re-tweeting. Some of it plain common sense all too often missing these days.

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    Great point of retweeting helpful of entertaining things. And promoting other people will lead to friendships and others helping you out.

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  • http://internetjobscams.blogspot.com work at home

    Nice post on retweets. I have already follow the two person that you mention here. I required mote twitter follower.

  • http://jennifervalerie.com Fruitfulvine2

    Most of my tweets are scheduled to go out every couple of hours and contain links to other people's posts that I find interesting. My blog posts are automatically fed to twitter using twitterfeed so that takes care of most of my self-promotion. I hop on twitter a couple of times a day to answer @ replies and DMs, retweeet current tweets I find useful and converse with a few people.

    Just like you said I try to ensure that my tweets have enough space for it to be retweeted without major editing by potential retweeters. There are tweets that I see that I would love to retweet but when I try to shorten it and it's too long I just don't.

    That's how I do it.

  • http://jennifervalerie.com Fruitfulvine2

    Most of my tweets are scheduled to go out every couple of hours and contain links to other people's posts that I find interesting. My blog posts are automatically fed to twitter using twitterfeed so that takes care of most of my self-promotion. I hop on twitter a couple of times a day to answer @ replies and DMs, retweeet current tweets I find useful and converse with a few people.

    Just like you said I try to ensure that my tweets have enough space for it to be retweeted without major editing by potential retweeters. There are tweets that I see that I would love to retweet but when I try to shorten it and it's too long I just don't.

    That's how I do it.

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  • http://www.cheap-web-hosting-review.net/ brian87

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

  • usmcjunglist

    Good advice. I also noticed that tweets also show up in the Google surch engine. So the more your tweets get re-tweeted, The better ;-)
    https://twitter.com/usmcjunglist

  • http://www.all-auto.ro/auto-second-hand vanzari auto

    this are very usefoul informations, In this period when Facebook is growing so easy.

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  • nikond90body

    I need to read up on what retweeting is

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    Good advice

  • http://www.memorybits.co.uk micro sd card

    I going to get this retweeted” or anything of the sort because that's not conversational, it's promotional. And, as for your 15:1 rule, so you're recommending people become RT bots, for the most parts?

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    great source of article thanks for sharing it here

  • trincasdisq

    Thanks for the tips, it will help a lot to twitter newbies like me.

  • Facebook Apps

    great suggestions. I try do do this on my own twitter profile myself, but i have never thought about visting others websites. A great suggestion, thanks; that seems like a good way to connect with people.

  • Infyshreedhar

    What are the best Paid ReTweet tools out there people?!

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