Ultimate Guide to Retweet For Twitter Users

Retweet is a perfect example of Word of Mouth advertising on the web. It is so explosive that it can be considered as the new linkbacks except more explosive. Retweets shows how high your influence is on twitter because the only reason why someone else would even read your tweets is because they appreciate the content that you are putting on the web. In my previous post if you have missed already, I have mentioned 25 tips to increase your influence and gain followers on twitter which will ultimately make you get more retweets.

The art and sciences of “retweeting” is best described as taking someone else’s twitter message, and reposting it on twitter again. In the course of doing so, you mention the original poster, or your source, and the link which is often associated with it.

In this post, I will share how to properly retweet because not only beginners don’t know how to retweet, but alot of users who are on twitter for a good while often doesn’t use the right technique of retweets. I will also share the advantages of retweets for webmasters and bloggers. Lastly, I will share the tools that you can use to track your tweets.

How to Properly Retweet?

There are multiple of ways of retweeting. You can use different labels to post retweets. The common ones that you will see mostly used are RT: or Reading: which are both fine.

Next thing you need to make sure that you credit the original source, or the source that you got the resource from. You can do so by saying @originalposter, so if you are retweeting my tweets, you should say @syedbalkhi in that tweet.

Critics might say that by adding someone else as your credit, you are losing your followers to them, no you are not. You are just helping them build connection also. Giving credit is a good thing that is why you are required to do so in books, papers and other scholarly information as well. By mentioning someone else’s argument or point, you are only strengthening your credibility.

Some Good Examples of Retweets:

RT @syedbalkhi 25 Reasons Why Someone Should Join Twitter – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn

25 Reasons Why Someone Should Join Twitter – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn (via @syedbalkhi)

Reading: 25 Reasons Why Someone Should Join Twitter – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn (via @syedbalkhi)

You can change the title if you think it will make it more attractive for your audience. For example:

Share it with your friends, 25 Good Reasons to Join Twitter – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn (via @syedbalkhi)

So there are more than one way of retweeting, you can’t get it wrong. But people still do. So make sure you analyze each tweet carefully before you RT because not only will it be worthless to your users, but to the original poster as well sometimes.

Let’s take the scenario if one of your friend Direct Message you, asking to Retweet a URL. Direct Message reads:

Hey, I am promoting this article can you please RT – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn

Now what you should do is first check out this post to see if you like it, and then don’t just RT the direct message. Take some time writing the headline, or just taking the article’s headline and using that in your RT.

I have seen users not even spending enough time in retweets. They will just post:

I am promoting this article can you please RT – http://ekey.us/w7Ig827kn (@syedbalkhi)

Which not only makes the original poster look bad, but it hurts your own reputation even more because you didn’t take enough time to read the article before you suggest it to others. Which means that for all you can be sharing a virus site and pissing off your readers.

Only Retweet Articles that You Find Interesting

Retweeting is not just about sharing the love. You must find the article interesting in order for you to RT. Don’t ever feel obligated to Retweet because then you are jeopardizing the quality of your tweets and losing your loyal followers. First read the article, and then share it if you think it is interesting. Also consider, if the article is related to your followers as well. If it is something that will help them, or if it is something that they will enjoy.

Retweets help build Relationships with other users

Retweeting actually help you build relationships with others and the original poster as well. I have noticed whenever I retweet something, I usually get more followers. Because someone usually retweet that url with me as their source and it spreads. So people see that I am sharing interesting content, and they follow me. The original poster is also happy because I retweeted his post, and I am someone who will help him promote his site in the future also if he keeps writing these interesting articles. It is just a good act which you should do before asking others to retweet something for you. I have mentioned it in one of my tips to increase influence on twitter. By retweeting you increase your chances of being retweeted because most users return your favor, only if it is interesting though.

Retweeting increases other’s trust in you

The reason why I have said above to post interesting content which is relevant to your users is because it also put your reputation on line when you retweet something. If you retweet something, you are asking your users to check it out. When they check it out and it is superb and relevant to them, they will begin to trust you. They will check out everything that you post because they like the stuff you post, and they trust you. On the other hand, if you retweet something bad which is completely irrelevant, then you will often lose followers after such sort of tweets.

Retweets are Explosive form of Word of Mouth Advertising for FREE!

All you have to do is make your article interesting, and this is the best form of viral marketing you can get for yourself. Retweets are natural linking so it can be considered more like what google would like to see in text linking. People link to what they find interesting. So if I share something interesting, then people will retweet it without me asking for retweets. Although it does gives you a boost if you ask. I will say from my experience in recieving traffic from twitter, it is better than any text link that you will see. Twitter effect is much like a Digg effect if you get the right people to tweet. I know my post on 25 Reasons to Join Twitter has recieved over 29000 visitors on it from twitter which I find just phenomenal. I wrote this post and it got tweeted by some of twitter’s celebrity. Next thing I knew it was on facebook, reddit, and other social networks and I am recieving traffic from everywhere. Twitter is Viral and it can really help webmasters if you want to get tons of traffic to your website.

Not just the new posts, people who are coming from twitter are now tweeting my older posts from my archives which is also recieving good traffic. I have tweeted some of my older posts to get more exposure. I am getting textlinks also from bloggers who are now seeing my content. Twitter has just put me at a new level. And it is all the power of Retweets.

Tools to Track your Retweets

1) Retweet Radar – This tool collects ideas most tweeted on twitter in the form of tag cloud where you will see more tweeted ideas bigger. It claims to show you the trend of topics and ideas on twitter.

2) Retweetrank – Retweet rank is a representative of the number of times a user have been retweeted by others recently on twitter. It ranks the users based on the retweet amounts and gives you a percentile rating.

3) Retweetist – This service highlights the most tweeted links on twitter.

4) Tweetmeme – Similarly this service lists all the popular links that are being retweeted on twitter. You can track your own links here by just searching for the url. You can also incorporate their plugin on your website and see the retweet count of a specific article.

All to all I am saying that you need to know how to retweet if you want to get anywhere in twitter. This will help you build your own brand and trust among your followers, it will help you build good relationships with others such as original posters, and your friends who you retweeted. It will also help you increase your influence if you do it correctly. It will get you insane amount of traffic if your article is interesting and relevant to your audience.

Since you have learn’t how to properly retweet through this article, let me see you retweet this article properly. I am @syedbalkhi (original poster) follow me on twitter.