How to get More People to Retweet You on Twitter

If you are new to twitter, let me first explain you what retweeting is. Retweeting is a process where people copy your message (tweet) to their followers. If somebody likes your tweet, they will retweet it and share it with their followers, so that more people can be aware of it. Retweeted posts are usually marked with a “RT @username” in front of the original message, or “via @username” after the original message.

Getting retweeted is great for your personal brand on Twitter and for your blog if you have one. If your tweets get retweeted, your Twitter name will be shown to many Twitterers and you will most likely get more followers, which is always a good thing. Also, retweeting can bring big ammounts of visitors to your blog, especially if the retweeted message contains a link to your site.

Well, you can’t really force people to retweet you on Twitter, but you can increase your chances of being retweeted.

Remember, you can only use 140 characters for a single tweet. That’s why you should keep your tweets short. Don’t use all 140 characters for your tweet, leave space for at least a “RT @yourname”, so they can retweet you. For example, my maximum tweet length would be 128 characters in order to allow space for someone retweeting to pre-pend it with “RT @markotu”. But keeping your posts even shorter allows for multiple retweets.

But only making your tweets short will not help, if they are not interesting to your followers. Tweet interesting stuff! Instead of answering the question “What are you doing?”, you should tweet about stuff that is interesting to your followers. Posting links to useful guides, news, funny or bizarre things and other informational topics is more likely to get retweeted.

Make your tweets seen by more people. Use #hashtags. This will make your tweets  seen even by those who are not following you, but are searching the hashtags. This way more people will find you and your tweets, thus increasing your retweet chance.

It may look desperate, but asking costs nothing and often gets positive results. Ask for a retweet. If there’s something you want to share with many people, simply ask them to retweet. To keep it short you can just add “please RT” to the message.

To summarize, keep your tweets short with interesting content and use hashtags. I usually get more retweets, if I ask for a retweet. What are your experiences when asking for a retweet?

1. Are You More or Less Likely to Retweet Someone’s Tweet if They Ask for a Retweet?
2. Twitter Etiquette: 7 Common Sense Rules for Twitter