If you like something on Twitter that you want to share with your followers, one of the easiest tools is the ReTweet (aka RT). By ReTweeting, you’re passing along comments, quotes and links that you believe other people will find interesting.
The question is whether there’s value in the ReTweet, or whether it’s just lazy Twitter-ing. If, for example, you feel the need to ReTweet because you’re not creative enough to put together your own 140-character (or less) message, what does that say about your approach to Twitter?
In some respects, it’s like writing a blog post that features a short intro sentence you write, and then a long quote from another blog. That’s not blogging but parroting.
So, what is the purpose of the ReTweet and why do people do it?
In theory, the ReTweet is a re-broadcast mechanism. If someone believes an update just has to be shared, hitting ReTweet is a quick and dirty way to spread the word. As for why people do it, it may be because it’s a no muss, no fuss, no thought required activity.
But what about the value of the ReTweet? Does it really provide your followers with something they need? Would there be more value in an original Tweet or, perhaps, responding to a Tweet?
Personally, I’m not a big ReTweeter unless there’s a really compelling reason to do it (e.g. an emergency, natural disaster, missing person). Frankly, there’s enough Twitter clients, search, trend and aggregation tools within Twitter for people to discover interesting links and comments without doing a ReTweet.
If you’re into ReTweeting or want to get your updates ReTweeted, here are some thoughts from Open Forum, Mashable and Matt Singley.
More: There are lots of tools to track updates attracting the most ReTweets. Among them is DailyRT, which has been described as a Digg for ReTweets. (Mashable has a mini-review)
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Is There Value in the ReTweet?
If you like something on Twitter that you want to share with your followers, one of the easiest tools is the ReTweet (aka RT). By ReTweeting, you’re passing along comments, quotes and links that you believe other people will find interesting.
The question is whether there’s value in the ReTweet, or whether it’s just lazy Twitter-ing. If, for example, you feel the need to ReTweet because you’re not creative enough to put together your own 140-character (or less) message, what does that say about your approach to Twitter?
In some respects, it’s like writing a blog post that features a short intro sentence you write, and then a long quote from another blog. That’s not blogging but parroting.
So, what is the purpose of the ReTweet and why do people do it?
In theory, the ReTweet is a re-broadcast mechanism. If someone believes an update just has to be shared, hitting ReTweet is a quick and dirty way to spread the word. As for why people do it, it may be because it’s a no muss, no fuss, no thought required activity.
But what about the value of the ReTweet? Does it really provide your followers with something they need? Would there be more value in an original Tweet or, perhaps, responding to a Tweet?
Personally, I’m not a big ReTweeter unless there’s a really compelling reason to do it (e.g. an emergency, natural disaster, missing person). Frankly, there’s enough Twitter clients, search, trend and aggregation tools within Twitter for people to discover interesting links and comments without doing a ReTweet.
If you’re into ReTweeting or want to get your updates ReTweeted, here are some thoughts from Open Forum, Mashable and Matt Singley.
More: There are lots of tools to track updates attracting the most ReTweets. Among them is DailyRT, which has been described as a Digg for ReTweets. (Mashable has a mini-review)