The Power of ReTweeting

I talked on Twitter a few times this week about "retweeting," or "RT" for short. It became clear there is some confusion about the practice and I wanted to expand on it.

Retweeting allows the power of the network to take place, in pretty much the same way a blog link can extend the conversation from one blogger to a great many, sometimes at a very rapid rate. If you Tweet something of interest and you have an audience of 10, or 100 or 1000 and no one retweets it, that is far as your message goes. But if you have 10 followers, and one of them has 100 and he or she retweets you, your message reaches that many more people. If of you of this wider ring... and so on.

I retweet usually retweet because someone else said something that I believe some of my followers will find interesting. It usually means I like what was said and want to give credit. It sometimes means that I really disagreed with what was said and am curious to see what others will say. Sometimes--when there's a disaster, a fire, an Earthquake or a Red Sox post season loss, a great many people retweet the information very quickly.

News of a San Francisco earthquake and more recently the China earthquake spread around the world many times before traditional news services picked it up. While sometimes this news contains factual errors, the process seems to filter for truth. In fact, many traditional news organizations now follow Twitter to get early information, often from people who are at ground zero.

Retweeting allows the power of the network to take over. It allows a solitary voice to be amplified by the voice of the crowd and it seems to me that Retweeting is the most powerful single aspect of Twitter.

Comments

[styletime]

I see RT's as a kind of equiv to Stumble Thumbs Up well that's how I use it anyway ;)

[Lea]

Would you say that it's parallel to commenting on something on facebook (in cases where your settings show that you've commented on your feed?

[shel israel]

No, Lea I would not. A Comment does not set the network amplification into place the way a retweet or blog link does.

[Peggy Dolane]

Retweeting also helps you make connections with new people and build your Twitter network based on relationships rather than mass-following people. It's also a form of pay-it-forward karma in action.

[Mayhem Studios]

I totally agree. I retweet many helpful links. You never know how many it will reach, with your followers retweeting your tweets. It's a good way for promotion and helping your network to spread the word.

Recently, I had a follower DM that he was going to stop following me, because I was retweeting too much, called it spamming and fake posting. I only retweet links that I feel may be helpful/benefit to the design community.

I will sorry to lose a follower but I'm not going to stop retweet helpful links becasue he feels that way.

You run into anything like this?

- Cal

[Craig]

What's the form of retweeting? Should I write "RT - from name - message" or what?

How do people know it's a retweet?

[Anne]

Must you mention that you're retweeting? If you find something interesting, isn't it fair just to post the URL and why you found it interesting?

[shel israel]

Anne.
You only use RT, when you are reposting what someone else tweeted. What you describe is when you point to someone else & comment. It's different, but it's nice to name the tweeter's site to give credit to the original source.

[Sylvia]

I'm following someone now who RT everything he receives as a DM.

RT can be abused just like anything else and restraint needs to be used. I have little interest in every MLM spam DM this person receives. Fortunately, it is simple to unfollow abusers of RT.

[Mark]

Excellent post, Shel.

The subject of creating diverse social networks in microblogging is an important one. Our Amy Wilson recently asked me that on my post about the rising use of "twitter for the enterprise" - how do you get diverse social networks when all you do is follow? (http://bit.ly/3luHeV) How can you find other viewpoints? I replied that following people who retweet will give you clues as to who else you might want to follow.

You hit the nail on the head in your post and in your reply to Anne's comment about why not just repost what they posted. The answer is the information of who was the original source is valuable to those who want to extend their network.

[HoundDogBlog]

I cannot agree with you more... especially with the election coming up. The retweeting effect is extremely powerful. Advertising is always about 'eyeballs' and if someone retweets that has more eyeballs... it is literally 'exponential' ...

[frank]

Re-Tweeting is an interesting concept to me. It's very useful for forwarding on information, but does it makes sense to just RT something ...

Or is it more valuable to your followers if you RT with adding your thoughts/personality??

Maybe it's situational? i.e. if someone tweets new's like the recent earthquakes vs. if someone tweets a link to a blog post?

What do you think?

--
http://twitter.com/franswaa

[m. adams]

Craig,

The etiquette for a retweet:

rt @username Verbatim quote

If you have more room, rt can be "retweet" or "retweeting."

And as Shel has pointed out in his Twitter stream, it is good form to retweet somebody verbatim.

The easiest way to retweet is to hit Reply, paste in the original tweet, and then prepend that with "rt" or "retweeting"

It's best to retweet *right* after the original post (that is, as soon as you see it pop up in your stream). That way, the "in reply to..." will link to the correct post.

[bact']

thanks for the nice post (oh, it sounds like i'm a spambot :p)

I do a rough Thai translation of this post at:

"พลังของการรีทวีต"
http://bact.blogspot.com/2008/10/rt-shelisrael-power-of-retweeting.html

[Michael E. Carluen]

One of the most simple, yet frequently used feature of TwitWall is the one-click automated re-tweet. You pointed out exactly why the feature is such a powerful way of exponentially spreading any message. Thanks Shel.

http://twitwall.com/view/?what=020000

@mecarluen

[Kerry]

I certainly do appreciate and find value in most of my contacts re-tweets. There does become a point where if a contact re-tweets too much, I think their re-tweets loose value and clutter my twitter feed. I'm not following someone on twitter to get what I can get from an rss feed or two.

[Mike Templeton]

I love seeing how quickly an idea or meme can spread with the power of retweeting behind it. However, as others have mentioned above, my question lies in the format and frequency of such an action.

Like franswaa, many times I want to add my own comment to the message, but don't want it to be misrepresented as part of the original tweet. Any suggestions for doing that or do we just leave our own comments out of retweeting and keep it about passing on someone else's thoughts?

[shel Israel]

Regarding adding your own quote to a retweet. If there's space, I put in ISTM (It Seeems to Me) & add my comment. Otherwise I add [MORE]and put my comment into a follow-on tweet.

[colmcgunnigle]

It's also a wonderful connector of people. Recently a life coach retweeted something I said about a logo I had designed for another coach and when I saw the RT I automatically thought, "Hey, I LIKE her!"

Funny how that happens. Funny and great. ;)

[Melinda Stanley]

I've just started learning the power of retweets! Twitter has such a simple interface but it goes much deeper than that.

Great Post!

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