Retweeting

Retweeting.

So what is this retweeting malarkey all about then? Twitter users will be used to seeing and sending retweets but there are benefits to both the original poster and the retweeter.

So first of all, how do you retweet? Ok, this is easy. Firstly you can copy and paste the original tweet and place ‘RT’ at the beginning, not forgetting to put in the originators name to give them credit. Or, secondly, you can hover over the tweet and click on the ‘retweet’ link, and this will then forward the message to all of your followers.

Applications such as Tweetdeck also allow you to edit the message before retweeting it which can be very handy if you want to reduce the size back below 140 characters.

To find what you have retweeted and which of your posts have been retweeted by others click on the ‘Your Tweets, Retweeted’ tab and a pane will open to the right with all the details in it.
Right, I’m tired of writing ‘retweet’ and Ezine articles will accuse me of keyword stuffing, so I’ll move on and just refer to them as RTs from this moment forward.

Why should you RT? Well RT-ing provides value to your followers, so it is important to only RT tweets that you find genuinely interesting or informative. If you are providing quality content in your twitter feed then you are more likely to attract new followers and retain those that you already have. Also people are more likely then to RT your content, giving you further exposure.

Don’t however RT any old content in the hope that this will be reciprocated, as you are diluting the value of your Twitter account and diminishing your followers twitter experience.

If you are worried that you may be sending followers away from you then don’t be. For the reasons outlined above, quality RTs only add value to your account and will encourage people to follow you more and pay attention to what you have to say.

I should really add some images to this post as it looks a little dull, but just don’t have the time at the moment.

Speak soon

Mark

Great Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools Resource:

I just wanted to list some of the great, and free, Twitter tools that are out there.

www.twellow.com – the Yellow Pages of the Twitter world. Great directory to find twitters of same or similar interest to you.

www.tweetlater.com – my personal favourite. You can organise several twitter accounts, set up and auto DM, auto follow and unfollow, plus you can set tweetlater to post to your twitter accounts while you are asleep, on holiday, walking the dog!

http://nearbytweets.com – Nearby tweets finds people on twitter who are in a similar geographical location to yourself. Especially useful if you are running a local small business, or just want to connect with people in your area.

www.tweetdeck.com is a downloadable twitter interface that allows you send and receive tweets and DM’s, while organising your twitter information into columns for easy reference. It also allows the user to split their followers into groups.

www.twitteranalyzer.com – This web based application is a great tool! Amongst its many features it shows you how many of your followers are online at any given time, giving you maximum exposure if you want to share a link or a post.

The other tool I want to measure is Twitter Smackdown which is a paid tool that I use, but which has enabled me to get a following of over 20,000 in just a few weeks. You don’t need this, but if you want to take your twitter marketing to a different level then this could be a good investment.

There are many, many twitter tools out there, far too many to mention, but as I trial more I will keep this page updated with what works for me!

Thanks

Mark