52 Methods: How To Get Your Tweets Retweeted

Twitter. You’ve setup your Twitter business handle. You’ve got Followers. You tweet. So, why aren’t your tweets getting retweeted?

You want more engagement in your social media efforts. On Twitter, this includes getting retweets. A retweet extends the reach of your updates. When someone shares your tweet, their Followers may see it, and it their Followers share it too, it gets seen by their Followers, and so on and so on. With over 500 million people on this social platform, getting your tweet retweeted can lead to business success.

It’s actually not as confusing as it may sound. There are many tips and tactics to use to get your tweets retweeted. Make the most of your social media marketing by using a few simple, actionable methods.

Here are 52 methods on how to get your tweets retweeted.

How to Get Your Tweets Retweeted: 52 Methods

1. Complete your profile – Ok this is a no-brainer step one. You need to complete your Twitter profile. Upload your profile photo, your header image (this is seen in mobile), and complete your bio. These all work towards establishing trust with your Followers. Don’t leave yourself looking like a blank egg avatar!

2. Use a relevant image for your profile – Use your business logo, or if you choose to use a person’s face for your business tweets, make sure it’s with a friendly, smiling face. This helps to builds trust and relationships – which helps to get you retweeted.

3. Add a cool customized background theme – this shows you have a bit of understanding of the site, and increases the likelihood you’ll be retweeted. Some cool background images could show the faces of people at your company or various marketing campaigns with Call-to-Actions (CTA’s).

4. Include links to your other social sites within your bio – Showing your followers you’re accessible and available builds trust. Trust can get you retweeted.

5. Link to your website – Followers want to know who you are. Include your business homepage in your profile.

6. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum – Yes, you’re on Twitter for business purposes, and you want to market yourself. But, truth be told, your Followers don’t really care that much about you and your products. Make your Twitter content about related stuff, and cleverly add in your company content.

7. Focus on engaging your customer – As above, you are tweeting to connect with your market, not talk about you. Tweet like you actually want to get to know your customers better – engage with those who Follow you.

8. Create interesting, witty content – Try to tweet out interesting stuff, and if you have the skills, make it witty and likeable. If people like your Tweet, they’re going to share it.

9. Create original content – If all you do on Twitter is retweet other people, you’re likely not going to get retweeted yourself. Keep a lot of you tweet content original, made by you.

10. Use short tweets – Really short tweets tend to get retweeted. Here’s one of my favourite tweets, from Copyblogger’s Brian Clark – and it’s only six words long.

11. Use long words – According to Dan Zarrella’s awesome and comprehensive report on retweets, tweets with longer words in them tend to get shared a lot more. You still need to keep your tweets short – just excogitate your vernacular to satiate your Followers’ desires. (ok, maybe not that much…)

12. Keep your tweets less than 140 characters – It makes your tweets easier to share, by allowing room for MT’s (modified retweets) and RT with additional mentions.

13. Tweet news – Twitter users are passionate about reading news. Aside from celebrities, the top twitter handles include CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk, the New York Times @nytimes, and BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking

14. Tweet interesting news – Make your news sound interesting. Why would your followers care? Don’t just send out a boring headline in an old school one way dialogue corporate type speak. Um, that really doesn’t cut it these days!

15. Think about your Tweet copy – Tweets are kind of like headlines. Make yours stand out to be read and shared. Write out a tweet 5 times, and then use the best one.

16. Ask for a RT – If you want your tweets to be retweeted, ask your Followers to RT. Asking for a RT gets a 12x’s higher retweet rate.

17. Ask for a Retweet – Asking for a “Retweet” results in a 23x’s higher retweet rate. Here’s a great example of asking for a retweet in conjunction with a giveaway offer:

18. Use #’s (hashtags) – You really need to use hashtags on Twitter. They connect you with your market on the site, and get your posts seen by a lot more people. Without #’s your tweets are only seen by your Followers. With them, they can be seen by hundreds or thousands of new people on Twitter, who might retweet your stuff.

19. Use #’s for community engagement – You can use #’s for community engagement, by taking part in popular subjects. For example, if your business is in social media, use #smm, #socialmedia, or #cmo.

20. Use #’s for a company specific campaign – If you want to create awareness of a marketing campaign, create a specific hashtag for it, to allow anyone to talk about it. This open space you make shows you care to get your consumers talking together. For example, KitKat uses #haveabreak to engage, get retweeted, and sell their products:

21. Use @mention to interact with industry leaders – A great way to get noticed by the leaders of your industry is to mention them in a tweet. They might even RT what you wrote about them!

22. Use RT’s to interact with industry leaders – Like the @mention, use RT’s to connect with your industry leaders. If they post an interesting update, retweet it to your Followers. Your Followers might RT it too!

23. Use @mentions to engage with your Followers/ customers – Talk to your customers and Followers by mentioning them in your tweets.

24. RT your Followers/ customers – When you see a great tweet posted by a Follower, retweet it, to create a stronger bond between you and them.

25. Respond to your @connects – Always check your @connects, to see who your new Followers are, and who’s mentioned you or RTed you. Respond to those interactions with a thank you or mention or RT back.

26. Retweet others who’v mentioned you – When someone has tweeted about your blog post, your company, or mentioned you, retweet it to your Followers. I thanked Mark, and retweeted this @mention for tweeting about an article I wrote on Facebook Promoted Posts.

27. Use contests – Contests generate excitement and engagement with your brand. Use them on Twitter. Set up a vote contest, photo contest or essay contest, and get your tweets about them shared. Here’s a few Twitter contest ideas.

28. Use group coupons – Like contests, group coupons can get your Followers excited, increase the level of engagement you have on Twitter, including getting your tweets shared through retweets.

29. Use sweepstakes – Sweepstakes have long been a part of successful marketing. Use them on Twitter to really get your brand known, and shared by the millions of Twitter users there are around the globe. Many companies are doing this. Here’s an example of a successful sweepstakes run on Twitter by Cherry Hill Coffee:

30. Think about your audience – Don’t blindly tweet stuff. Be intentional about actually wanting to interact with your followers, and other twitter users.

31. Get to know the Twitter language – If you’re not familiar with Twitter terms, learn them. (There’s a short Tweet lingo list in my free eBook on Twitter Content Marketing for Business) (As a minimum you need to know: RT, MT, @, #, list, retweet, favorite….)

32. Use the Twitter lingo – Show that you know the lingo, and you know the culture. It’ll make you fit in a lot more, and you’ll get a lot more RT’s.

33. Tweet questions about your business – Questions invoke a response. This creates engagement and sharing. Ask questions about your business to value the views of your consumers.

34. Tweet questions about current events – People on Twitter tend to like to talk about newsworthy occurrences. When an event is related to your market (whether it’s a local event or industry related event), pose a question about it your Followers. For example, if there is a small earthquake in your area – ask your Followers if they felt it.

35. Tweet questions about lifestyles – Twitter is about relationship building. Get to know your Followers, and let them get to know you. Ask what your Followers about fun stuff, like what they did this weekend, or what sports team they want to win a championship. Here’s an example of a question from National Geographic, asking about sleeping habits. It’s relatable content and creates intrigue and interest.

36. Tweet with your personality – Add character to your tweets. People want to connect with people online. Include a bit of realness in your tweets by mentioning something quirky or specific you like to do.

37. Use quotes – Quotes are a great way to connect with your market, and get retweeted. Include a few quotes in your weekly schedule. Use stuff that inspires, makes you happy, or makes you think.

38. Include statistics – People like to know about statistics. They are easy to read, and can be concise and to the point. They can get your tweets a lot of retweets. Here’s a great example from HubSpot:

39. Use numbers – Like statistics, people like numbers. They make your Tweets stand out a bit, as a variety from letters and words. Use numbers like 10 or 8.

40. Use images – Twitter is not the most visual social site, but images do get retweeted a lot. In fact, 36% of links shared on Twitter are images.

41. Link YouTube videos – include videos about your company in your Tweets. These get shared, and they develop further trust and relationship building with your Followers.

42. Use Vine videos – Vine videos are 6 second videos frequently used on Twitter. if you have a creative team – or you’re creative and skilled enough – make them, and use them.

43. Use promoted tweets – When you want a particular tweet to reach a larger audience, pay a little (or a lot) to get them into more people’s feeds. Promote tweets you’ve had success with, with lots of rewteets – promoting them will give you more RT’s.

44. Tweet to time with popular current events – If there is a worldwide news event, and you can tie it into your business, tweet about it. Oreo has been particularly amazing with this. They were quick to tweet about the SuperBowl blackout this year, and they were first to tweet about the Royal Baby birth, as in the example, below.

45. Don’t tweet too frequently – You’ll annoy your followers

46. Tweet fresh content – Don’t post the exact same tweet all day long. Even if you are marketing one campaign, and need to get the word about it – change up your tweets to reword them, but still get people engaged with your campaign.

47. Keep your tweets cool – Don’t beg for a retweet, or send out spammy messages. This is huge turn off, and you won’t accomplish your goals. Like this example, of a tweeter jumping on the Oreo Royal Baby wave by begging for more followers. Ok, it might be kind of cute, but a little too obvious and spammy for most.

48. Track your links – Like any good marketer, you need to measure your Twitter success. Measure your Click Through Rates (CTR) by use link shorteners like bit.ly. If you’re using social management software, like Buffer, Hootsuite or other, you’ll be able to use their link shorteners and track them all in one dashboard

49. Try out different times of day to tweet – The average lifespan of a tweet is 18 minutes. If your followers aren’t on the site when you tend to tweet, you’re going to miss an opportunity. Try out different times of day, and assess what works for you. For example, if you have a global reach, your Followers might be sleeping while you’re busily crafting and posting your tweet masterpieces. Use analytic tools, and keep tweaking your tweeting times.

50. Try different days to tweet – Weekends matter in the Twittersphere. Even though you may be trying not to work, or even think about your job, your followers are reading your tweets. Try out different days to tweet, using the track and analytics mentioned above. You can always use pre-scheduled tweets – just make sure you check them out. If there’s been a major disaster over the weekend, and your scheduled tweets are related – make sure they’re still appropriate to send out!

51. Tweet great blog posts you’ve read – When you do, be sure to @mention the business or author’s @username in the tweet. ;)

52. Be real, and have fun!

Conclusion

So, there you have it, 52 tips to get your tweets retweeted on Twitter. Try them out, and you’re sure to improve your tweeting success.

To keep gaining successes in your tweet strategies and tactics, take a look at a few of these related articles and resources:

• How to Use Twitter to Drive Traffic to your Blog
• The 9 Most Common Mistakes on Twitter
• How to Run a Twitter Contest
• [Infographic] How 5 Top Brands Are Using Twitter to Drive Sales
• [Infographic] The Top 7 Tips to Get More Followers on Twitter
• Twitter Marketing Resources

What do you think? What methods do you use on Twitter to engage with your customers? How have you gotten your tweets shared? Let me know in the comments, below.

Read more:

• How to Promote a Tweet on Twitter