The importance of retweeting (and how to do it like a pro)

NOVEMBER 8, 2011 BY LILACH 52 COMMENTS

As more and more people and businesses are joining Twitter, becoming a member of this rapidly growing social media site is becoming evermore vital for consumers and businesses to function effectively in the marketplace. Put simply: if you fail to adapt to the rapidly changing environment and don’t join Twitter, you are missing out on loads of opportunities and will soon be lagging behind your competition.

But simply joining Twitter is not enough. As any user of Twitter will tell you, retweeting is central to Twitter. In fact, it’s one of Twitters most useful tools. It allows users to share their best links, most interesting tweets, and other exciting things from people they are following.

So if you find useful content, you can share it with others by retweeting (and this brings lots of benefits to you that I don’t have time to go into here). But you will also want others to retweet you.

Whether you’re an experienced Twitter user wanting to learn new tips or just a beginner aspiring to become a Twitter pro, then carry on reading.

Let’s start by looking at why you want/need to get retweets on Tweeter……

• Getting your content “retweeted” on Twitter (i.e. getting people to repeat what you’ve said, usually combined with a link) is a powerful way to drive traffic to your site. This can translate into increased number of subscribers.
• It increases your visibility and reach in the online community, including your rankings in search engines.
• It enables you to connect and build relationships with new people (i.e. potential customers, people of influence), especially those in your niche.
• If other people retweet you they are giving credit to your valuable content, which heightens your own credibility.

Now I’ve explained the benefits of retweeting, let’s learn how to get others to retweet your post.

• If you want people to retweet you, ask them (politely – no begging or forced persuasion). This serves as a useful reminder – after all people do forget. There are many ways to say this but a simple expression “please retweet” will do the job. Data shows tweets that include “please retweet” do get more retweets than those without.
• Use abbreviations e.g. use the abbreviated form ‘RT’ rather than ’retweet’. This helps conserve your limit.
• Watch your timing – To increase the probability of being retweeted, post your content early in the week (i.e. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) and between 9.00-1800.
• Include a link – As well as making your tweets more retweetable, providing a link helps you to spread your other non-Twitter content.
• The probability of a tweet being retweeted grows significantly each time it is retweeted. So there is even more incentive to get retweeted. But how do you do this? You could message other users asking/persuading them to retweet content for you. Even better if you can get well-known users to share your content as they will add authority and reach their followers too.
• Ensure you add value – There are many ways you can do this. Some of the best ways include: How-to guides, (breaking) news, warnings, freebies & contests.
• Every time anyone re-tweets, it can easily add up to 12+ characters into that tweet. So stop typing plenty before you reach the 140 limit. This reduces the chances of words being lost (particularly URL links as they are normally at the end of a tweet) when a person hits the retweet button. If you don’t want to do this, ensure the tweet is easily editable.
• Don’t talk about yourself. Instead, talk about what is happening in the world and the activities of influential/popular/well-known figures. Good topics include business, media, money, etc.
• Be novel – provide new information, use new concepts and unique words.
• Don’t be scared of long words or complex language. It’s been shown these are in fact the most retweetable. Now I’m not suggesting you should go out of your way to make them complex if it doesn’t suit; all I’m saying is tweets don’t have to be overly simple to be retweeted.
• Appreciate and thank other users who’ve re-tweeted your posts.