Do you use Twitter but don’t retweet? What left!

Advanced Twitter marketing makes proper and heavy use of the Retweet aspect of Twitter. But even if you’re not using Twitter for internet marketing or Twitter for affiliate marketing, you should still be retweeting tweets every day. Not retweeting anything is selfish and, well… silly!

First, let’s look at what retweeting is and why you need to keep the implicit promise to those who follow you on Twitter. The tweets you see on Twitter are from the people you’ve chosen to follow, and only from those people, you create your own Twitterverse that way. And so does everyone else, including those who choose to follow you.

As a result, unless you’re both following the exact same people, each of you is seeing some tweets, probably a good percentage, that the others aren’t seeing. And that’s where the retweet comes into play. If you see a really helpful, positively encouraging or funny tweet, please pass it on to your followers so they can learn from it/visit the site/laugh at it too!

This obviously conveys more value to your Twitter followers than just sending them your tweets, as they get them as well as your own original tweets. But simply taking someone else’s tweet and passing it off as your own isn’t just in bad taste, it’s one of the specifically prohibited activities that Twitter claims it will shut down your account for. So what is the correct Twitter etiquette for retweeting the messages you receive?

Let’s assume the tweet in question came from my broadcast on SuperAffil. Just highlight and copy the tweet, then in the update window put ‘RT on SuperAffil’ (without the quotes) and paste my message after that. That first bit shows that it’s a retweet of a tweet he got from SuperAffil, and then he shows them what the original tweet said. While this is a bit tricky in the Twitter.com user interface, third-party software like TweetDeck makes it much simpler: In TweetDeck, for example, hovering over the tweeter’s avatar brings up 4 small icons, one of which is for retweeting. Just clicking that icon puts your retweet in the update window, ready to send with the proper format already done for you.

Hopefully, Twitter will eventually add that feature right into its interface, but since most users already interact with Twitter through third-party software, it may not really be necessary for them to do so. Twitter’s growth has been so rapid that they have their hands full with server updates, spambot checking, and are now fighting against denial-of-service attacks, hackers, and blackhat software developers trying to gain an unfair advantage on Twitter. However, Biz Stone and his team have done a fantastic job keeping Twitter intact, growing securely, and becoming increasingly powerful in its usefulness to Twitter users, so don’t be surprised if a retweet feature and other enhancements to the user interface appear from time to time.

So now that you know HOW to retweet, the big question is WHY you should retweet. Let me reaffirm my belief that not retweeting is too selfish: you’ve decided that no one but you has anything of value to offer your followers, and they should be left alone to find valuable tweeters to follow. Conversely, when you pass on the best of the tweets you receive, you’re adding more value to the equation, making your stream that much more valuable to those who follow you. And it also gives your followers a heads up about other users whose tweets are good enough for you to pass on, giving them an easy way to follow that person too.

Also, the ‘law of reciprocity’ is alive and well online: when you’re retweeting others, since their @username tag is in the tweet, they’ll see it too, and that you’ve retweeted them. This gives them a good reason to follow you too, as you’ve shown that you feel like you’re tweeting with similar goals to your followers. And often, they’ll then look at your tweets, retweeting the best of them and exposing it to their followers as well. This ‘Twitter network’ can also be a powerful strategy, especially if the people you’re retweeting are at the same or higher level in your particular niche. Most Twitter users find it flattering to have their tweets retweeted, and a little flattery for those above you, when it’s genuine and not over the top, can never hurt!

As you can see, retweeting helps your followers, improves the value of your own tweet stream, helps you get noticed by the movers and shakers in your niche, and often leads to your tweets being spread to a wider audience. , giving you more followers. and expand their sphere of influence. This is a win-win situation for anyone who uses Twitter, but especially powerful for Twitter marketers.

Harness the power of retweets in YOUR daily Twitter marketing activities today!