Retweets

Twitter has become an extremely popular piece of social media for the world to communicate, receive updates, and for businesses to promote their products. One of Twitter's most well-known features is the retweet feature which allows you to share posts from other users. 

You may have heard of it before, or maybe you've had one of your posts retweeted, but what is retweeting, and what does it do for you and your followers? Here's everything you'll need to know about Twitter and its interesting retweet feature. 

What Is Retweeting?

When people retweet a post, they display the original tweet on their Twitter profile. Doing this exposes the original poster's account and tweet to all of the retweeter's followers. Essentially, it's Twitter's most prominent sharing feature. 

Additionally, when someone retweets a post, they can comment and share a brief message to provide more context for why they're retweeting that particular tweet. Plenty goes into retweeting etiquette, but its main purpose is sharing what posts interest you. 

What’s the Purpose of Retweeting?

The main purpose of retweeting is to share Tweets that you find important or interesting to your friends and followers. Everyone has different reasons for retweeting. For example, some people make it a career and charge users to retweet their posts for promotion.

News outlets focus on tweeting and retweeting important updates on domestic and global affairs. Others concentrate on retweeting art and various graphic designs for their followers to look at. Regardless of your reason, its main purpose is to spread the word. 

Why Is Retweeting Important?

Retweeting is an important feature because it helps cultivate communities and discussions. There are over 450 million monthly active users on Twitter, so finding important tweets would be extremely difficult without the retweeting feature. 

Exposure is extremely important for small businesses that rely on Twitter and other social media accounts to promote and share their product. When someone retweets a post, others may join in and share, leading to a chain of sharing which is great for marketers. 

When Should You Retweet?

Now that you understand why retweeting is important, it's time to understand when and why you should retweet. While most businesses want their tweets to reach as many people as possible, using the feature to interact with your consumers is also important. 

Consider retweeting tweets from your consumers that actively endorse your product or service. Testimonials go a long way to help convince others to try out your product, and when someone tweets positively about your business, it's just free marketing. 

Are Retweets a Reliable Metric?

Retweets are an important social media metric for digital marketers focusing on social media-driven campaigns. The more exposure your brand gets via retweets, the better. That's not to say that all publicity is good, but your product can thrive via exposure in the right light. 

Retweets alone won't tell you the success of your marketing campaign. You still have to see how many leads you generate from it and how it impacts your sales. You can measure the engagement and whether that engagement is positive or negative. 

How Do You Get People to Retweet Your Post?

Getting people to retweet your post can be complex, but plenty of Twitter profiles specialize in retweeting for businesses. For example, if you pay, influencers are willing to retweet and promote brands.

Sometimes going this route is the best since you expose your product or service to that influencer's audience. It also bypasses the initial barrier of exposure for unknown brands. If that doesn't interest you, you can also focus on building your network of followers. 

Where this gets complex is the quality of your followers. Your followers will see all your tweets, and if you make your tweet appealing enough, some of your followers are bound to retweet it. You'll want to focus on building your presence if you're trying for organic retweets. 

Best Ways To Improve Your Twitter Presence

If you want plenty of retweets, you must improve your Twitter presence. There are many ways to increase your Twitter presence, but the best way is to participate in relevant discussions involving your market sector. 

Most well-known brands have active Twitter accounts that engage with their consumers. The first goal is to ensure that people know your Twitter account exists, and the next is to give them a reason to interact. Promote your Twitter on your website, packaging, and advertisements. 

Something else to note is that Twitter has a few clever ways to help you increase engagement on your account. For example, you can take polls directly on Twitter and your followers, and anyone who sees that Tweet can weigh in and participate. 

Additionally, some social media accounts shift their focus on asking their community questions to get direct feedback or start a discussion within given Tweets. Constantly doing this is the best way to improve your presence and increase engagement. 

How to Properly Retweet

Even if your goal is to get as many retweets on your post as possible, it's still important to interact with the Twitter community. That means learning when to retweet posts and how to do it properly. Here's some retweeting etiquette advice. 

• Make sure the retweet is relevant to your profile: It's important to get exposure, but you have to retweet posts relevant to your profile or open up a discussion that promotes your brand in some positive and productive way. 
• Add context to the retweet: Twitter allows you to comment on retweets. Take that opportunity and provide context. Retweeting without context may confuse your followers, and they miss the point of the post or why it's important to you. 
• Scope out the user's profile before retweeting their tweet: Sometimes, people retweet posts from unreliable profiles, leading to misinformation or accidentally promoting something bad. Don't be one of these people. Review the profile and do your research. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the answers to common questions about Twitter's retweeting feature. 

Is retweeting the same as sharing?

Retweeting is Twitter's way of sharing posts on your profile, but it's more convenient. Instead of linking and manually sharing with friends via direct messages, you can click an icon and have every person who follows you instantly see the post. 

Is replying to a Tweet the same as retweeting?

It's important to note that you can also reply to retweets and most Twitter posts, but the two aren't the same. Retweeting is reposting an original tweet by another user, and replying is commenting on that post. Replying to tweets is not the same as retweeting. 

Who sees your retweets?

Every person who follows you on Twitter can see posts that you retweet. Additionally, if they enable notifications for your profile, they'll receive a notification every time you tweet or retweet a post.

Is it better to like or retweet?

If you're looking to help a tweet or discussion get more attention, it's better to retweet. While users can still check your likes, posts you retweet appear directly on your feed. For exposure, retweeting is always the better option. 

Bottom Line

Understanding how to utilize retweets on Twitter will open up a new world for you as a business owner or digital marketer. For better communication and engagement with your community, look no further than Twitter. 

Take the time to retweet some testimonials or promote your brand by incentivizing consumers to engage or retweet your posts. Still, it's important to remember proper retweeting etiquette. Don't retweet everything you see, and make sure to put your two cents in if you do retweet.