There's plenty of Twitter info that didn't make it into the main articles, so I'll be posting some of the "outtakes" from here on the blog. Here's the first!
Allison Klein, guest blogger:
If you've been listening or have recently started tweeting yourself, you've probably noticed that a lot tweets that have "RT" peppered throughout them. Welcome to the world of the re-tweet.
What?
Abbreviated as "RT," the idea of the re-tweet is really just a way to indicate that you’re quoting another users’ tweet. If you find a tweet to be particularly interesting, full of useful information, or including call to action worth passing along, you may consider re-tweeting it.
How?
To re-tweet something, just copy and paste the content of the original tweet, and precede it with the letters “RT” to indicate that it includes something that you’re re-posting from another user. Follow that abbreviation with "@" and the username of the original tweeter to give them credit. If you that doesn't push you over the 140-character limit, you might also want to include your own comments, but the re-tweet can also stand alone. (And yes, you have to copy/paste -- just typing "RT" will not do anything "automatically" like I thought it would the first time I tried to re-tweet something.)
Why?
I find that re-tweeting comes very naturally -- I don't know about you, but I'm always sending links to useful Web sites or funny videos to my friends and co-workers. Re-tweeting is just the equivalent of this practice in the Twitterverse. So I guess what I'm saying is--why not use it? It's an easy way to become a more regular/active tweeter without having to come up with or find your own content.
PLUS, using the re-tweet is a great way to get a conversation going with another Twitter user that you might not know yet. Once you've re-tweeted them, many people (corporate accounts included) will send a thank you message (via @reply), which you in turn can reply to if you so choose, so it really does serve to help build new relationships on Twitter. You're putting yourself on the original tweeter's radar -- which means that they might very well start following you, and so might some of their own followers. So think of re-tweeting as a good karma measure! The more you re-tweet and give credit to other Twitter users, the more likely they will be to take notice of your tweets and do the same.
Here are a few examples of re-tweets that I've posted recently, so you have an idea of what this looks like and how they may be used.
After seeing Hair on Broadway:
Regarding a giveaway I was missing while out of town:
You're probably following and being followed by other Twitter folks in your field:
I found this original tweet via Twitter search results:
...so I re-tweeted it to spread the word.
And the Atlantic Theater did the same here, when they saw my own tweet reviewing their current show:
I should add that finding out that something you've tweeted has been re-tweeted brings no small amount of pride -- so definitely consider re-tweeting your followers if you want to make them feel good! It also lets them know that you're listening to what they have to say!
Thanks, Alli!
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