www.Wednesday: Tweet and ReTweet

On Twitter, “ReTweeting” is the way users acknowledge they like someone’s post. It’s a quick way to both quote and “hat-tip” (credit) a friend on Twitter. Getting retweeted is a great way to accumulate new followers, because your tweet is now seen by all of the followers of whoever retweeted you.

Sound confusing?

It’s easier than it sounds.

Let’s say my friend and fellow FHK conspirator, Tex (@GhostRanger), puts up a great post and link on Twitter (as he often does) like this one:

This says it all. http://www.lovethissite.com…

I liked the post, and want to share it with my followers, and with the folks following relevant #hashtags, so I retweeted thus:

Retweet @ghostranger This says it all: http://www.lovethissite.com…#tcot #sgp #teaparty

(For more info on the #hashtags, see #Hashtags and What to Do with Them.) Note, to save space, I could have replaced the “Retweet” at the beginning of my post with “RT”.

Now, all of my followers, plus everyone following the Top Conservatives of Twitter (#tcot), Smart Girl Politics (#sgp), and Tea Party (#teaparty) hashtags were able to see @Ghostranger’s post. Some of them might have even decided to follow him if they clicked on his ID, and liked his bio and other tweets.

Sheryl Brown, of Yorktown University and Don’t Quit U. (also @dontquitu), recently sent us this great resource from the OPEN Forum for Business Owners: How to Get Retweeted:

“Today, the sincerest form of flattery is retweeting—the process of forwarding someone else’s tweet to your followers on Twitter…

The reason that retweeting is so flattering is that every time people do it, they are putting their reputation on the line. If their followers don’t like the retweet, their reputation is reduced. So whenever someone retweets your tweet, they are expressing confidence that what you’ve tweeted is interesting and good. Thus, the best measure of someone’s quality as a Twitter user is not the number of followers but the amount of retweets….” For six ideas on how to get retweeted, visit the OPEN forum. >>

Dan Zarella explains the finer points of ReTweet Etiquette here, inclujding who and how to properly give credit, and how to preserve the original meaning of tweets in 140 characters or less.

@Ben_Parr, of @Mashable explains how a service called “Please Retweet Me makes Retweeting Dead Simple”:

“…Simply type in what you want to have retweeted and Please Retweet Me will send out a tweet with a link at the end to pleaseRT.me (clever, no?). Clicking on the link doesn’t take you to the website, however. Instead, it will take you to your twitter homepage and fill in everything necessary to retweet the tweet again, complete with the pleaseRT.me link.

“There is no copying, no pasting, and there is not even a need to ask for a retweet because the URL already has the phrase built in…” Continue reading on Mashable >>

How will you know if people are retweeting you? Remember, retweets will not show up on your @replies, because this feature on twitter only shows Tweets that begin with @YourUserName. To know if you’ve been retweeted, you can use the Twitter Search feature, or a third party search service like search.twitter.com, and search for your username. You can also use Tweetlater.com, which you can set to send you e-mail alerts when you’ve been retweeted (See Cool Tools to Save Time in Social Networking for more info.)

Happy ReTweeting!