How Retweets Work and Using Them to Grow Your Traffic

Retweets are probably the most over-used and least understood feature of Twitter.  Yet using them correctly can help grow your traffic like no other strategy.

“Retweeting” simply means sharing someone else’s tweet with your followers.  It’s a mark of endorsement and recommendation, telling them “this person has something of value to share”.

Getting your link or post retweeted by industry influencers can boost your reputation and status almost instantly.  And if many of your followers retweet your link to their followers… who in turn retweet it to their followers… it can mean instant Twitter success.

(The key, of course, is producing posts that powerful.

How to Retweet

There are two ways to retweet a tweet:

1.    Simply hit the little “Retweet” button that appears at the bottom of every tweet when you mouse over that area.  This makes Twitter retweet it as is, automatically.

2.    Manually retweet it.

To do this, open up a new tweet textarea box (in the top-left widget on your feed page).

Type “RT” plus the person’s handle.

Copy-paste the tweet text.  Paste it after the “RT @handlename”.  Like this…

This will immediately show you the number of characters left for you to add a comment of your own.  And here’s where so many people lose their traffic-growing and engagement opportunity:  They write tweets that are simply too long to manually customize and retweet.

There is no room left for customization or endorsement.

Think about it:  What will ultimately bring you more traffic?

• Posting a tweet that uses up all available characters, so people have no choice but to impersonally press the automatic “Retweet” link
• Leave room for people to make positive, personal comments that act as both validation and a highly-personal testimonial

Let’s take another look at our Retweet of @CarrotQueen’s original post, which is highlighted in aqua…

Notice how much room she left.  Enough for us to type “RT @CarrotQueen”, then add a personal reason stating why we loved her post enough to retweet it.

That is the sort of retweet that:

• Makes people also interested in the topic being retweeted sit up and take notice
• Go check it out
• Follow @CarrotQueen

Be sure to mix retweets in with other post types.  Whatever you do on Twitter, it should feel like a natural action, a normal conversation.  If you retweet sparingly, resisting the urge to reciprocate straight away for everyone who retweets your posts, people will sit up and take notice, when you do find a diamond you want to share.

So you don’t have to start reciprocal retweeting – but it is good policy to acknowledge and thank anyone who retweets your post – as quickly ask possible.

 “How Do I Find Out Who Has Retweeted My Posts?”

That’s simple.  Just go up to your top menu bar and click on “Connect”.

You will immediately be able to see:

• People who have mentioned you in their tweets
• People who have retweeted your tweets

To find all activity involving retweets, select “Interactions”.  You’ll see a list – and you’ll instantly be able to acknowledge anyone you missed.

“How Do I Turn Off Serial Retweeters?”

In your zeal to take advantage of retweet power, there is one type of tweeter you never want to become – the Serial Retweeter.

This type of tweeter is often just sheer lazy:  He sends automatic retweet after automatic retweet because he can’t be bothered to write an original post – let alone a personalized recommendation.

He’s letting other people do his work for him.

You will probably come across Serial Retweeters before too long.  They clutter up your feed and are a nuisance.  Here’s how to get rid of them without necessarily unfollowing them…

1.    Click on the Serial Retweeter’s Profile Photo.  This will open up his or her Profile.

2.    Click on the icon to the left of “Following”.  Select “Turn off Retweets”.

There is one good reason not to rush into getting rid of people who retweet a little too often:  Studying their example can be a powerful teacher of what not to do!

Ten Tips for Powerful Retweeting

Retweets can give you no results, “okay” results or noticeably effective results.  To increase your chances of attaining the latter, follow these ten well-proven tips…

1.    Keep your character count between 70-100 characters, if you want your tweet retweeted.  As proof of what we were saying earlier, check out the graph screenshot, below.

Business Insider published the results of an analysis performed by Track Social, which showed the optimal number of characters that got retweeted.

2.    Retweet relevant tweets.  That might seem pretty obvious, but it’s important enough to stress.

3.    Be choosy in what you share.

4.    Don’t just retweet tweets: Take the time to visit your prized Twitter connection’s blog or website and share content directly, if you think it’s truly going to interest, amaze, help or entertain your other connections.

5.    Don’t be monotonous when retweeting.  Don’t always retweet links.  Don’t always retweet quotes.  Don’t always retweet tweets by others.  Mix your tweet types – and intersperse tweets with retweeting.

People who always send the same type of tweets quickly get “tuned out”

6.    Study other people’s retweets.  Study retweets of people who have retweeted your posts.  Which ones leave you cold?  Which are confusing?  Which are effective?  Which retweets pleased you most?

Being observant is one of the greatest teachers you could have.

7.    Remember that tweets containing links are shared more often than those without.  Understanding this cultural practice should help you increase your retweetability.

8.    Retweet when your target market is most active on Twitter.  One of this social network’s biggest drawbacks has always been how fleetingly tweets appear and are lost in the never-ending stream.

Metrics site Tweriod recommends doing so between 2—6p.m., if you’re not sure when your target audience is there (or there is too much traffic at other periods that might work better).

9.    Use URL shorteners to give your followers more characters to customize, when they retweet your content.  (Bit.ly and Ow.ly generate the most Retweets, compared to other URL shorteners such as tinyurl.com.)

10.  Use the Magic Word.  Studies have confirmed that tweets containing the word “please” are retweeted more often.

11.  Talk directly to your audience, when tweeting. Studies have also shown that people are more likely to retweet when you begin a post with “you”.

12.  Ask for a retweet!  Using the phrase “please retweet” can be as good as a secret weapon.

If you want retweets to help you grow your traffic, either have hordes of followers… or create tweets that are irresistible to your intended audience.  Really work on making your tweets lean, mean, exciting and above all, shareable – and you’ll get those new followers quickly enough!

How Hashtags Work and Using Them to Grow Your Traffic

Most people discover hashtags quite early in their Twitter journey.  And many more ignore them till much, much later, when their Twitter habits are set and established.  If you are new to this unique social network, you need to know that you can instantly attract the right followers, find the right people to follower and hook into the best network segment for your goals straight away… simply by using and following hashtags.

This is what an effective hashtag (Penguin’s “#DailyDeal”) looks like, in action:

It doesn’t have to be used for just promotion or branding.  A hashtag can be a keyword, hook, topic indicator, community connection tool and search filter all in one go.  It strains out the hordes of spammy tweets that seem to populate the Twitterverse at times, and instead brings up ones relevant to your interests – specifically, to the keyword (hashtag) that you chose as your filter.  It also makes your tweets easier to find for your audience, when you share your hashtag.  (Get it right, and it may even go viral!)

What is a Hashtag?

Hashtags look like this… A word, acronym or collection of characters preceded by (#).

The above screenshot shows one quick way, incidentally, to find out which hashtags are trending right at the moment, while you’re logged in:  By glancing over to your left-hand menu bar and checking the top hashtags that are trending, under the “Trends” window.

You can create your own hashtags.

You can follow other peoples’.

You can follow company or resource hashtags too (e.g. “#Nike”, “#freefood”).

Google+, Pinterest, Pheed, YouTube and Instagram also allow hashtags.  Pinterest and Pheed hashtags in particular, however, are not the same as Twitter hashtags, so make sure you study each network’s specific hashtag guidelines.

8 Benefits of Using Hashtags

You can use hashtags for a variety of functions – and reasons.  We’ve already mentioned narrowing the focus on who to follow, and you can create your own hashtags to serve more than one purpose too.  But before you start using them, you have to be aware of their specific benefits.  Knowing these will affect how you choose to use hashtags.

• Grow your following and extend your reach
• Find relevant people, companies and organizations to follow
• Brand a product or business (e.g. “#Nike”)
• Brand, promote, manage and track an event through its distinctive hashtag
• Participate in Tweet Chats and Twitter Parties
• Quickly tweet information to people (Twitter followers, forum members, subscribers, etc.) who follow your custom hashtag
• Networking with industry or niche influencers and peers
• Grow traffic

Creating Your Own Hashtags: 101

Creating your own hashtags is a wonderful way to brand a product, business – or a particular promotion.  (You can use your hashtag as a metrics tool, if you create one for a campaign.)

But it’s like anything else in marketing:  You need to know what not to do, and how to get the maximum effect.

Don’t…

• Use hashtags containing more than two words (e.g. “#marketingmythsfifteentips”)
• Create hashtags that are too quirky – unless you have a whole army of promotion tactics to spread it.  (Example:  You want to create a unique identity for an event)
• Start your tweet with numbers (e.g. “#999”).  You can include numbers – but only after alpha characters (e.g. “#fuzzimals123”)
• Overuse hashtags.  Keep them for important and highly relevant use.

Do…

• Make your hashtag short
• Make your hashtag easy to read (e.g. “freepizza”)
• Make your hashtag as vividly descriptive – and simple – as possible (e.g. “freepizza”)
• Remember to use your hashtags to designate topics, subjects or categories

So how do you make a hashtag?  Simply preface any word or word combination with the “#” sign (#MyHashtag) – and share it in a tweet.

You can make your hashtags all lower-case, or use initial caps as above, to help people make visual sense of your combination hashtag.  (“#MyHashtag” is easier to read than “#myhashtag”.)

That’s the easy part.

Making your hashtags go viral is the real trick.

Making Your Hashtags Go Viral

The only way to grow traffic with your hashtags is to make sure they are shared – and more than shared.  You want them to explode on the scene like a spectacular firework and go viral.

We’ve already spoken about the importance of creating hashtags that are short, catchy, easy to read and relevant.  The real trick is to pick the right keyword(s); then pair your new hashtag with a relevant, active hashtag.  For example, if you have created “#FBbloopers”, pairing it with the existing, highly-active hashtag “#socialmedia”.

And, of course, the bigger your list, the more likely your hashtag is to be retweeted and followed.  If you don’t yet have a big list, introducing it on membership sites or forums (if allowed), as well as the above tactic of pairing it with an existing, relevant hashtag should help you get started.

Finding Good Hashtags to Follow

Following the right people via their hashtag can also help boost your own credibility (think  “credibility-by-assocation”), which can net you followers of your own.  You become part of any community built around a strong, evergreen hashtag.  But how do you find them?

In addition to simply searching via the Twitter search bar, there are even more focused ways to find hashtags to follow – especially off Twitter.

1.    TweetChat – You do have to log in with your Twitter name and password.  What this does is allow to focus on one hashtag, each having its own dedicated chat room.

This can save you hours of monitoring tweets you’re not interested in on Twitter by allowing you to focus just on that particular discussion/hashtag.

2.    Twubs – Another strong hashtag directory, which also shows you hashtags and conversations to follow, and allows you to register your hashtags in their directory

3.    Hashtags.org – allows you to analyze which hashtags are trending, allowing you to “listen, measure and engage”… as well as track!

There are many more Twitter sites and online management tools.  Pick one that feels a comfortable fits for you.

Hashtag Mistakes

Yes, you can dilute the effectiveness of hashtags – or even do the opposite of what you intended.  For example, if you load each tweet with too many hashtags, people will eventually mentally and literally skim over them without reading.  They’ll feel like “spam”.

So here’s what not to do with your Twitter hashtags, starting with the tip we just mentioned:

• Overloading your tweets with multiple hashtags.  It looks and feels aggressively spammy; it’s confusing; it’s hard to read the message you presumably wanted people to read.

• Following hashtags that are not consistent with your brand or stated core values.  Doing so is okay if you are using Twitter as personal recreation – but not if you’re using it for business purposes.

(Example:  Following “#ReallyHateSmallKids” if your business is all about selling quality toys suited for the 3—7-year-old age range to university-educated mothers in a high income bracket.)

• Inserting popular, trending hashtags not relevant to your tweet content just to ensure your tweet is seen.  The only thing does is annoy the people who are seriously follow that hashtag.
• Going off topic while using a hashtag.  Don’t get sidetracked into personal discussions that have nothing to do with the hashtag while still using it!
• Not tracking your hashtags.  Sites such has Hashtags.org often provide easy and thorough tracking tools (free or at paid levels of subscription)
• Trying to use other special characters in your hashtags.  It’s alphabetical characters only – with numerals allowed in the middle or end.

Don’t overcomplicate things. Focus your hashtag on your goal and your followers.  Make it easy to read and catchy to remember and share.

Now that you know how hashtags work, and what to do/avoid, put them to use.  Make your traffic grow.