6 Types Of Retweets On Twitter
Our tweeting experience is incomplete without retweeting. Everybody loves to retweet. As @Flipbooks said, “If you ain’t retweeting, you ain’t tweeting!” So true.
I’ve noticed that on twitter, there are 6 different kinds of retweets. See if you fall in any of these categories!
1. Friend Retweet
This is the retweet you do for a friend. I’m sure you get DMs requesting you to RT a certain article. I receive such DM requests too and I make sure to retweet them only if they are from a friend. I don’t appreciate DM requests from people who 1) I’ve never talked to on twitter and those who never interact with me 2) also if I don’t like/agree with the content and 3) the content is copied/unoriginal.
2. Retweet button retweets
Some users like to retweet using the RT button – which is great when the tweet is too long and you want to keep the twitter handles in the tweet intact. But personally, I think the old school RT is the way to go, primarily because you can add comments to it. But if at all you don’t want to add anything to the tweet, using the retweet button is okay 🙂
3. Comment Retweet
Like I mentioned before, some users like to add comments to a tweet which is awesome because by doing that you are sending feedback to the original poster whether you liked or disliked the content. This proves to be very helpful to the original tweeter, but make sure it is constructive criticism, if any. Also, you can edit tweets to fit into 140 characters along with your own opinion to it. Old style RTs also help in initiating conversations and discussions. Which style do you prefer?
4. The ‘Retweet because the title sounds awesome’
I’m sure many of us have RT-ed a link tweet without even checking it out, just because the title sounds good and interesting. When you are tweeting from phone, you happen to retweet a tweet or two without reading the actual post. Have you ever retweeted a link without reading the article? I have to admit, I have retweeted blindly sometimes.
5. Promo retweet
This kind of tweet can get slightly annoying (I mute such users from my twitter app, tee hee!). Such users like to retweet every single ‘promotional’ tweet or #followfriday tweet they receive. Hence, their timeline looks spammy. Too much of it and you will get unfollowed.
6. The Conversational Retweet
Some users like to RT the tweet to which they are replying to. I see a lot of such tweets but I don’t see the reason why you should do it. Because everybody sees the tweet which is actually supposed to be a conversation between two (or more) people. Hence it fills up your followers’ timeline with many useless tweets.
So there, these were some of the types of retweets I found. Do you have more to add? Which one of these retweets do you send out? Share with me in the comments!
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Nice one! It’s also a great post to explain RT to someone 🙂
Regarding #4: I’ll blindly RT only if it’s from someone I know and trust. If I’m on my phone and I’m not sure, I’ll favorite the Tweet just to remember to read it later. It’s a little trick that help!
I haven’t retweeted an article or anything before reading it first but I totally do the favorites option to keep tweets I don’t have time to read on the spot. Agree with you AndreeAnneB. It’s a great simple trick. ; )
Excellent list, Nicky! 🙂 For old school retweets, if i want to edit the original tweet (to fit in my comment), I’ll use “MT” (modified tweet) instead of “RT.” When I do this, I try to make the edits as minimal as possible (e.g., change “and” to “&”), and of course avoid editing to the point where I’ve obscured the content of the RT/MT tweet.
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So when you MT/RT do you copy and paste the content? I like #2 bc it’s easy but definitely think that #3 has more value to it bc I do want to tell my followers the reason why they should even bother reading the stuff I retweet. Sorry, a bit new at this. Haven’t figured it all out yet. Thanks for the help if possible!
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My preferences are for #2 & #3, depending on whether I want to keep the tweet as is or to skew it with my own comment(s).
thanks for your comment Richard
Retweeting a tweet before you reply to it can be useful information, as long as the conversation is something that would be relevant to your followers. i use this kind of retweeting to display debates or questions on my twitter.
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Yeah, if the topic discussed is useful and relevant then its okay. When I see a lot of just plain conversation tweets being RTed – it can get annoying right? thanks for your comment Fern~
Admirable. Estoy sorprendido. Joven inteligente. buen comentario.
thank you
I like the comment retweet. I will sometime just retweet, but my preference is to give feedback when I retweet.
Another type of RT is a self-promotional Thanks.
Person A tweets about a new blog post.
Person B ReTweets that.
Person A thanks Person B and adds link to blog post.
Similar one is Tweets thanks for leaving a blog comment.
I think this is acceptable in moderation. You need to tweet blog posts multiple times for different time zones… anyway.
Sometimes I hear people asking how to modify a ReTweet before sending. In native Twitter the new ReTweet doesn’t allow editing.
You can use another client, you can reply and start with RT, or easiest of all use Buffer http://bit.ly/txTQY3
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Nice article here,
I used to get request from people to help them retweet some of their tweets which sometimes I don’t even have time to do that and later I found out that many people are still eager to get people retweet their post and I will recommend this twitterapp for them which is JustRetweet.com this site offers help from people that want to get their tweets retweeted from other users!
Thanks for the article.
Hi Nicky…I used to be addict in twitter but now I am not already…It really bores me…
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I did #4 today, but only because the title itself was good enough that even if the article it linked to was dreadful, it wouldn’t matter.
It was “Supercharged 60mph mobility scooter seized by Doncaster council”. Hehe!
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Thank you Nicky for the helpful post you have shared in your site here…Great job!!
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Thanks Nicky for the informative post you have given us here…
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Great job Nicky!!I am really happy that you have this kind of post about twitter…
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Just 3 and 4
haha
I like it Nicky 😀
Hi Nicky…Thank you for the great post you have for us…Impressive!!
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Great job Nicky!!Thanks for the great post here…
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Hi Nicky! These are great ideas but I don’t usually re-tweet. I am just visiting Twitter to check my followed celebrities about their Tweets.
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That’s a nice list you’ve made..
Almost everyone has tried out these RT styles at some point of time..
I didn’t quite #6.. Did you mean RT-ing the replies someone gets; or RT-ing their own tweets?
Glad I found this tips that you shared and it is extremely helpful for me.
“The Re-Tweet because the Tiltle sounds awesome” haha!
That’s one kind of the truth I must say. Who does not do it?
Great Article!
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