How to get your tweets re-tweeted – 10 top tips

It is tempting to judge your “success” on social media by the number and regularity of your outpourings, however the quantity of tweets is not the determinant of your success on social media.

One easy-to-measure yardstick that really sorts out the mediocre tweets from the top tweets is how many  are re-tweeted; when one or more of your followers, or indeed non-followers decides that your tweet merits re-tweeting to their followers. If you want your reach and impact to spread on twitter, you need to be tweeting in such a way that one little tweet is carried to hundreds of thousands of people.

Here’s how you can achieve this :

• Become a genuine expert and share useful nuggets of information and expertise. It may take a little while for people to view you as an expert and not just a flash in the pan trying to sell something but once you’ve established a regular pattern of expert tweets, your followers will pick up on them. Many will share these tips with their own  followers. But don’t over saturate. If all you do is share an unrelenting stream of top tips you’ll come across as one dimensional.
• Re-tweet the tweets of followers that you would like to re-tweet your tweets. What you give out, you get back.
• Get into the habit of responding to tweets you enjoy, find useful or just plain amusing. In doing so you are drawing attention to yourself in a positive light so that when your tweets pop-up in a follower’s timeline, they will be much more predisposed to re-tweeting because they already hold you in a favourable light.
• Tweet about something topical that sits within your area of expertise. For example, a cake maker could share an opinion about the Great British Bake Off, a musician about The X Factor, a personal fitness trainer about the Olympics and so on. If the debate is already happening on twitter, the fact that you are sharing your opinion as an expert with a connection to the topic means you are more likely to have these tweets re-tweeted.
• When you promote your latest blog, don’t just share a link with a few bland words. Tell your followers the benefit of reading your blog and re-tweeting it to their followers. “7 ways to build a powerful twitter profile. My latest blog” has more impact than “my latest blog on twitter profiles” The tweet promoting your blog should be the headline to an advert.
• Be controversial but remember there is a fine line between making people respect you and annoying them.
• Include in your tweet the name of a follower that you would just love to re-tweet your message. You can bet your bottom dollar that if there is a positive and obvious connection between your message and your named follower, they will re-tweet your message to their own followers. For example, I am speaking at an event in a few weeks time and the organisers have been sending very nice tweets about the event with my name in the message. How could I not re-tweet that to my followers?
•  Share an inspirational quote or saying, but go one step further than the usual tweets of this nature and share why you like it/how it has helped you.
• Ask a question and make it clear that you really would like as many answers as possible. “What is your number one marketing tip for social media?” Many followers will answer you and others will re-tweet your question to their followers.
• Thank every person that re-tweets your tweets. Twitter is not just one to many, it’s also 1 to 1. A personal message no matter how short goes a long way in building  online rapport.

Do you have any of your own tips on how to get tweets retweeted?