A practical guide to getting more Re-Tweets on Twitter !

Guy Kawasaki and Mashable might want to skip reading this article because, clearly,  this is not intended for them. This is for the millions out there trying to get the basics right, making an impression and building their reputation on Twitter.

Well, the reason why @mashable and Mr.Kawasaki get re-tweeted for every single tweet of theirs is because they already have the major part of twitterverse following them. And that may not be exactly the case with you and me. We’re strugglers trying to make an impression and we have to try the hard way ! But its fun, believe me.

Building the foundation – Make yourself the most Re-Tweetable guy around

What ? “Re-Tweetable” guy ? What does that mean ?

Well, things have changed , or rather evolved on Twitter, to more complex forms, compared to its beginning when people were happy, just tweeting. Not any more. We build hashtags, we build communities, we build rankings..and we have re-tweets, the most happening thing on Twitter.

Re-Tweets have become more like links to websites, in webmasters terms. They’re like votes given to you by your followers. And there’s a lot of meaning to a Re-Tweet today than anything else on Twitter.

A follower Re-Tweeting you could mean -

- That he’s listening to you carefully.
- That he finds you interesting.
- That he suggests you as an authority to others.
- That he admires you for what you are on Twitter.

Or it could be just a simple form of willingness to share information. Whatever it is, to get re-tweeted by your followers, you need to earn a reputation. A reputation that will make you the “Re Tweetable guy” around. After all, not everyone re-tweets every other guy, we are very selective about whom we re-tweet right ? Let’s see how can we qualify to be one.

8 Tips on How to be the most “Re-Tweetable guy” around ?

1 – Be the first to tweet

Be the first or rather don’t bother tweeting them at all. Be it news, tech developments or some random gossip. If you’re the first or at least among the first to tweet, then people would want to follow you for the next breaking story. But if you’re tweeting a news item that’s one day old, I don’t see a good reason why you should be followed.

2 – Tweet resource lists everyone would enjoy

There are lot of quality websites out there that consistently churns out quality resource lists that are definite crowd pullers. Follow those sites closely and make a habit of tweeting them as soon as they are published. These tweets are everyone’s favourites.

3 – Select a niche and stay focussed

This is not a necessity, you could even tweet from across the categories, but that will make things confusing for you as well as your followers. Keep them engaged, let them expect from you what you’d tweet next. Select a few categories that interests you and stick to them, trying to be a jack of all trades will lose focus.

4 – Re-Tweet others

The simplest and easy way to getting the hang of re-tweets is to follow a couple of tweeps who are pioneers and simply re-tweet them. When five of them share 10 stories, you would be tweeting 50 awesome stories. But don’t be a bot at that. And you might also want to find out lesser known interesting tweeps rather than just re-tweeting mashable all the time.

5 – Don’t tweet old stories

Obviously, nothing as wrong as doing this. But the funny part is that you realize it when its too late. So, what I’d recommend you to do is to constantly keep a watch of your lifestream, don’t lose out on breaking news/stories from the community, so you know when you’re repeating them.

6 – Re-Tweet lesser known tweeps with value

There are lots of people out there who doesn’t know the marketing jargon but are quality tweeps, they break news stories first, has access to great resources but haven’t have gathered much following to boast about. They are excellent resources, if you find and re-tweet them, you’d be doing them and yourself a favour.

7 – Don’t Re-Tweet the most popular guys often

And I underline “often”. Its okay and makes sense to re-tweet them for their tweets would be quality ones for sure, but how about re-tweeting them all the time ? Don’t you think the 50k others following them would also be doing the same thing ?

8 – Don’t repeat or duplicate

People often give “minus votes” to you when they see you repeat. its like you giving them a reason for not having you on their follower list. This is not any grave mistake, actually many of us do it unknowingly. But its good to minimize it.

9 – Make friends with the powerful guys

Its not easy. And if you aren’t good at mingling with people, you might just end up being a loser. But the thing is that these guys open up if they see value in you. Like if you have a lot of followers and you’re more engaging to them unlike this guy, he might think about befriending you. So it depends on whom you approach and how. If you can break in to their “social circle”, your half job is done. Just keep flowing with the wave and ask for their help when you need. Half of the time, if you do it the right way, they will.

10 – Use the tools to stay ahead of others

So you know that the masters have their own tools. It isn’t simply possible without the tools and gadgets to be constantly delivering quality tweets in your stream. So what tools help you ?

1. News sources

There are a number of news sources on Twitter itself that will give you access to breaking news alerts and updates. Follow them and drop them in to a seprate group so you don’t miss the updates.

2. RSS Feeds

Find out which are the authority sites that churns out resource lists and subscribe to them. use your favourite RSS feed reader to up date/alert you when there is an update from the sources.

3. Popular URL trackers

There are several popular URL trackers for social media channels available today. They help you to track the most popular website content on the web by anytime. Here are five such tools that will help you.

Tools to find the most popular content on the web

1. Popacular – Lists the most popular stories from Reddit and Twitter. It has some issues with the reddit tool now, but twitter is great.

2. Re-Tweetist – A real time tracker of the most popular retweets and re-tweeted users.

3. Daily RT – A list of the most popular urls re-tweeted on Twitter.

4. Popular Tweets – A compilation of the top 10 tweets grouped by the last day, week, month, 6-months, and year.

5. Repeets – A comprehensive list of the most popular tweets by hour.

So, there you go. Getting re-tweeted is the crux to more popularity on Twitter. And people are realizing the power of re-tweets more than ever before. With these tools and tips I hope you too can make an impression and gain more re-tweets for your tweets more than ever.

I’m open to suggestions here.

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