Each time one of your Twitter followers re-tweets one of your tweets they help develop your Twitter influence. Retweets can help grow your amount of followers, drive traffic to your website and ultimately create more customer conversions. Here are a few tips and tricks you can put into practice to get users retweeting you.
1. Be first
Where possible try to be the first person to break news. If not first, be one of the first. For example you could be walking in a mall and see a ridiculous promotion or an entertaining situation or even unexpected traffic. This way you are informing your followers of something that is useful, new and relevant.
2. Chat
Tweet about things you can converse about. Even if your Twitter accounts is for your business, talking about topics that you can converse about is far more interesting to your followers than self-promotion and none engaging statements. As an individual be careful about talking about yourself too often or you may end up on Tweetingtoohard.com and users will follow you for the wrong reason.
3. Link to something interesting or that adds value
Give your followers the opportunity to spread your content by adding a link to your tweet. Twitter users love spreading content and interesting links. Also, spread other people’s content that you find interesting in return. This way, your Twitter stream will be filled with a variety of interesting links.
4. The golden 25 characters
Twitter allows you enough space for a 140 character message however, if one of your followers wants to manually retweet you they will need a few characters to add the RT and some commentary. Leave at least 25 characters for them to do this. You need to make a retweet as easy as possible for your users and you will reap the benefits. Remember to also use a URL shortener, this saves you loads of space.
5. Unique
This relates closely to being forthcoming on Twitter. To be interesting enough to be retweeted you should offer some sort of uniqueness. This can be an opinion about an event or a unique sense of humour even if it’s controversial. People love quotes, jokes and funny comments.
In the end, you need to be original and genuine when sharing with others. It’s simple, if you share something you genuinely find interesting, chances are other like-minded people will find it interesting as well.
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Thanks Etienne, a good reminder for some great tips. “The golden 25 characters” is such a simple yet powerful tip that is easily overlooked.
“The golden 25 characters” excellent tip, Thanks!
I think that can also be generalised to real life talking, where conversations are often dominated by one person, leaving little room for other contributions!
Thanks for the comments everyone. The 25 character rule is so simple and so effective. It’s amazing what can happen if you make life easier for your followers. It can be tough to make that extra space on your tweet. What works for me is removing some of the vowels in words. However this is a last resort and I try not to make a habit of it as it can come across as unprofessional or childish.
Comment
Any tips for perhaps extending the conversation? I’ve noticed that I’m often re-tweeted or get a mention but the conversations never seem to last long, and very quickly people are on to the next thing. I also noticed that I might comment or try and engage on Twitter but simply get no response.
Hi Trumpess,
Unfortunately people moving on to the next topic is the nature of Twitter. Information is pushed to you at a steady rate and users lose interest quickly in old information. I have found that people who continue to engage with me are people that I have met personally so maybe the solution is to use your networks more. I also think that the topic you are conversing about is key. Choose topics that you know is interesting to the people you want to engage. Keep it niche and targeted.
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