While retweets make up a significant part of the twitter network, they also serve as referrals to content that are being published. Twitter users generally trust their friends or people they follow to steer them to interesting content that they would not come across ordinarily. (Image credit: Flickr)
For me personally a retweet also serves as something of a pat on the back, in that the content I produce is deemed worth sharing and peeks the interest of people. If you can get retweeted more often, it serves to drive traffic.
So what can one do to get retweeted more often? I hope this guide serves as a checklist. It comprises of techniques that I have come across and gleaned from different sources and that you can easily adopt to improve the retweetability of your content.
- Learn the best times for tweeting.
Each blog has a demographic that reads your content and the key to retweeting is really understanding what timezone that demographic lies in and when they are likely to be logged in and searching through their twitter accounts. SocialBro and Tweriod are 2 services that could help analyze your followers and pick the right times to get retweeted more often. - Quality, unique content.
Putting out content that is unique or expresses a different point of view is more likely to get retweeted more often. Posting frequently and allowing readers to engage is important and becomes easier when you write about what you know. Have an opinion, and a voice. - Cater to ADD.
It seems that most people suffer from short attention spans and one of the easiest way to keep peoples attention is to provide lists that they can skim through quickly. It also makes for easier retweetability. - Provide links.
The presence of links is more likely to result in a retweet than a tweet without one. It is considered an accepted way to spread non-twitter content. - Use persuasive / descriptive headlines.
These are vital to get the reader to click through to the content. Create sassy and provocative headlines. - Add awesome adjectives.
Part of creating attention grabbing headlines is to use adjectives. They can lend a certain weight to an article, and persuade readers to check out the story. They also take a life of their own when added in a retweet as they lend more persuasion to the recommendation. - Demographics.
Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your blog post or article to the audience. For example the headline includes “for bloggers”. It is aimed at people who are content creators and by targeting this post to them, I’m hoping that they would find it worthy to be shared amongst wider blogger circles. - Use short headlines.
Keep headlines short and no more than seven words. Keeping them short is good for easy digestion of the content and provides enough space for retweeting purposes. - Use a URL shortening service.
They are real space savers. Services like Bit.ly are easy to use and great at this. - Leave characters spare.
Don’t max out the 140-character limit if you want a credit back to you. You need to allow for ‘[RT]’, which is five characters when used with parenthesis (including a space), followed by your username - Use hashtags.
Append your tweets with a ‘#hashtag’. For example this article might be appended with ‘#tips’, ‘#twitter’ or ‘#retweet’, to increase its chances of being found. It may also help your tweet to be picked up by others and and those that conduct searches for those particular search phrases and hashtags. - Memes.
Add value to existing conversations by providing a different perspective or adding to it with additional hints, tips, counterargument etc. - Viral Buzz content retweet option.
Viral buzz content is a social media platform that lets you get retweeted by retweeting other peoples content. Make sure you check the retweet option in your account. - Mention your influential followers.
As you build your followers some will have a larger number of followers than others. Some will be fairly well known as well. Giving them a @mention is an easy way to increase the likelihood to get retweeted more often, from them as well as their followers as long as your content is relevant to them. - Use Retweet buttons on your site.
Integrate retweet buttons with your website and make it easy for readers to retweet your posts. There are a number of options and retweet aggregators that would suit. generally speaking for most websites placing 2 retweet buttons – one placed above the fold and another at the end of the article have the best results. - Expand your network.
Work on getting a network of friends and influencers to seed your posts. While this shouldn’t be a major concern it helps to look for friends and followers every now and then. Let the primary focus be on producing great content which attracts new followers. - Participate in chats.
Twitter chats are a great way to get to know people and have them listen to you on twitter as you contribute to a shared twitter stream. - Repurpose quality content.
You may notice that some of your posts seem to stand the test of time and was well received. In such instances you can bring people’s attention back to it by tweeting about it again. - Quit begging.
I have seen some recommendations to append your tweets with ‘please RT!!!’. I believe retweets are a measure of a vote of confidence in the content or in the topic. It really is based on the merit of the content and so begging for a retweet serves no purpose than to appear spammy. Remember your followers follow you for a reason and it has to do with the quality of content. - Retweet!
Most of all remember to retweet other people’s links / tweets. It is the easiest way to get on peoples radar and share the love around. - Be on the look for breaking news and hot topics.
News spreads very quickly in the twittersphere so much so that news and media organizations monitor twitter as well. Even if you can’t use breaking news items for your niche, perhaps something interesting could be used. You just need to subscribe to relevant feeds known to provide up to the minute news.
Do you know of more tips to get retweeted more often, if so please feel free to share them in the comments below.
