How To Retweet (The Original Way and Using The Retweet Button)

Posted on January 8, 2010

There are two ways to send a retweet on twitter – one that allows you to add a comment to your retweet and one that doesn’t. If you want to know how to add a comment to your twitter retweet (the “old way” to retweet), watch this video:

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Hey! It’s Emelie with LKR and you can ?nd our site at LauraRoeder.com. Today, we’re going to tell you how to create a retweet on Twitter because there are two different ways that you might not know about.

A retweet is when you copy someone’s tweet and send it out to your followers giving credit to the original tweeter. Basically, it’s just a way to share a tweet that you’ve read with everyone who follows you.

The ?rst way to retweet is to use the built-in retweet feature on Twitter.com. I All you need to do to retweet, is to hover your mouse over the tweet you want to retweet which will show this little menu that pops up and you see the option to retweet.

You can go over to your pro?le see the retweeted tweet that shows up in the tweet stream and you’ll see little green arrows which means that this is a retweet. When you see retweets in your tweet stream, they may show up from people who you don’t actually follow.

The reason that is is that somebody else retweeted one of their messages, somebody that you follow and so you’ll see it on your home page. Again, the ?rst way to retweet is just to click this little retweet link that shows up when you hover over their tweet, you’ll click to retweet it and press “yes.”

The second way, the kind of old school way, the way people used to do it on Twitter is to just copy and paste what someone wrote. First, you need to highlight the text that you want to retweet and note who this author is.

In order to retweet, you want to paste it into your little tweet box just over on the left side of your home screen. Then, you need to type in the letters RT and then the name of the person who you’re retweeting from. When you start typing in the name, it’ll show up and you can just click on the name to con?rm.

Make sure that when you’re copying and pasting your retweets, that you separate the letters RT which means retweet from the person’s Twitter handle. Make sure to put the @ sign in front of the Twitter handle so that the people can click through to that person’s Twitter pro?le. You want to paste it into your little tweet box just over on the left side of your home screen.

Make sure that spacing is correct. There needs to be space between RT and our Twitter handle and there can’t be any spaces between the @ sign and the person’s name.

The great thing about copying and pasting with the retweet method, is that you can add your own commentary if the retweet doesn’t add up to the 160 characters that Twitter allows.

If there’s room you may say “great advice” or “funny” so that people can see your opinion on this tweet and then you just simply click “tweet” and you’ll see it show up in your Twitter stream right at the top.

This was Emelie for LKR showing you how to retweet.

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17 Responses to “How To Retweet (The Original Way and Using The Retweet Button)”

Ari Herzog
Jan 08, 2010

Very useful information, Laura, for people who may not HOW to retweet. Though, this begs the question if I was new to Twitter, WHY would I want to retweet? Where’s the value in retweeting, I’d want to know in that situation.

Keep ‘em up!
.-= Ari Herzog´s last blog ..Ranting and Deciding Something About Twitter =-.
Ramanuj Basu
Jan 10, 2010

Good info for new users, and a good reminder for all of us that there are two ways to do this. The important distinction in my mind is that using the “old school” method allows you to add your own comment to the retweet, giving your followers a more personal message from you … and probably increasing the likelihood that they’ll follow any link or retweet it themselves.
Jens P. Berget
Jan 11, 2010

I use Tweetie, and I usually click the RT icon, and just let the tweet (including the RT and the @username) stay unedited. But once in a while I edit the message in the retweet to fit my followers, and once in a while I actually remove the RT and put via @username at the end (I think that this brings even more readers to the tweet and more clicks).
.-= Jens P. Berget´s last blog ..How To Use Tweetie for Twitter Search =-.
Farnoosh
Jan 19, 2010

Thanks again! I would have liked the Retweet button to let you edit the Retweet a little by maybe adding a compliment or a note preceding the tweet, but no such feature….But I still use it now and again. Thanks for the videos!
rj's mama
Feb 16, 2010

thanks for this info, very informative for first time twitter users like me
Corve
Apr 30, 2010

Great video
Michael Maier
Sep 14, 2010

Very helpful. I was trying to figure out how to do this very thing. Ok. I’m going old school twitter retweet. =)
Frogger Game
Oct 18, 2010

I go old school too and just use the old RT tag. Call me crazy but I like to do it that way.
Boof Splooge
Nov 17, 2010

I’m sorry Laura, but you’re way too hot to be on the internet. Wait, why am I sorry? That’s a compliment. Damn, you’re so smexy.
Bob McGough
May 18, 2011

Great learning object. The natural follow-on might be a VoD that demos link shortening, as many times a RT with a comment will cause an overflow.

Happy to have found your blog, Laura. Thx!
Erik
Jun 16, 2011

Three minutes and twenty seconds to communicate what should be about 10 words.

Fail.
Natalie Dee
Jul 08, 2011

Laura, thank you!
Having searched around for a simple explanation of how to do the RT – retweet, yours is without a doubt the easiest to follow.
Much appreciated!!
Natalie
GeekDrop.com
Sep 16, 2011

Thanks for the Tutorial. Anyone know of an addon or something that makes it easier to re-tweet the “old school” way without the copy / pasting?
David Carley
Oct 20, 2011

Thank you, I’m not new to Twitter, but have wondered for quite some time how to add a comment to a re-Tweet, and your second option allows for this – excellent.
naples park
Nov 25, 2011

Normally I retweet good posts that come through my feed hoping that they might retweet mine as well in the future. But I do always check carefully what I RT because it might not be related to my niche or things like that, some of my followers might not appreciate those kinds of messages coming from me. But if it is really worth the read, like something huge I won’t hesitate sharing it.
Scottsdale Bootcamp
Dec 06, 2011

Thanks for posting this video. Something so simple shouldn’t be so difficult to figure out!
Mark D Worthen PsyD
Apr 28, 2012

Very helpful video – thank you. I’m so used to using Echofon that I just assumed that Twitter also provided a “Retweet with Comment” option. After searching in vain for such a button on Twitter, I Googled “how to retweet with comment on Twitter” and found your video. Seems like this is something Twitter ought to add …