How to be ReTweeted

Rich Brooks runs Flyte, a web design business in Maine. Along with his corporate website, he also has an interesting blog, Flyteblog. In a recent blog, ReTweeting: The Art of the RT on Twitter, he was asked about ReTweeting – what it is and how to do it. I think his article is a good start for beginners looking to understand the ReTweet. And it inspired me to write about why ReTweeting is good and how to write Tweets that get ReTweeted.

Why ReTweets are good
ReTweets are like Twitter’s version of word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth is the most highly credible and most compelling form of marketing there is. Not only that, ReTweets are like a “vote” for you on Twitter. When you tweet something, and someone else ReTweets it, they are presenting to their audience a “vote” for you; an encouragement that their audience should pay attention to what you have to say.

If you think of Twitter as being made up of a bunch of spheres of audiences with a single Twitter user at the center of each sphere, a ReTweet helps you to “jumps spheres” and expose your message to another audience.

A ReTweet now and then is good. Consistent ReTweeting is better.

How to Be ReTweeted
While not every tweet of yours will be ReTweeted (after all, few people are going to ReTweet that you ran to Starbucks for coffee), you should make it a goal to have some of your tweets ReTweeted. Here are some ideas that will help you to be ReTweeted:

1. When you tweet, make sure that you’re only using about 120 characters. That way, when someone ReTweets you, you’ll have room for your name.
2. Write inspiring, motivational, or pithy ideas that encourage others to succeed. Not sure where to start? Find a list of famous quotations and tweet some of those!
3. Write about one of your followers. If you Tweet positively about them or their business, they’ll likely ReTweet you.
4. Write a testimonial about a business you enjoy buying from. There’s a good chance they’ll ReTweet you.
5. If you want to be ReTweeted beyond your followers, try tweeting something with a popular hashtag. In fact, one way to consider getting ReTweeted (if it works for your subject matter of course!) is to watch the trending topics on Twitter and tweet something about one of those.

Make it a goal to be ReTweeted once a day. If you Tweet a dozen times in a day, try to write one of those tweets in a way that others can ReTweet it easily. After consistent ReTweeting, you should see your followership rise.

ReTweeting reading
Here is some more reading on ReTweeting

• Bloggingbits.com has a guest post by A.J. Vaynerchuk called: “A Simple Guide: How to Retweet“.

• Mashable can always be relied on for compelling information. Read their post, “How To: Retweet on Twitter” .

• TwiTip has a blog by a guest poster called: “How to get ReTweeted – The Forumla“.

Good luck!

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – “I Don’t have the Twime to Tweet Twegularly”
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitter Plug-ins for Your Mobile
3. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10
4. Pay it forward for big payback
5. Tweets in 10 (Part 2) – Gathering the RIGHT Followers