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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Hi, I’m Laura Roeder. You can find my site at lauraroeder.com, just like it says right here. Today I want 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. So, basically it’s just a way to share a tweet that you’ve read with everyone who follows you.
So, the first way to retweet is to use the built in retweet feature on twitter.com. So, I’m signed in on my account, lkr @ twitter.com, right now and all you do to retweet is click this little retweet button right here. So you can see when you’re just looking through the tweets it won’t show up, but when you hover on the right side this little retweet link will come in. So all you have to do is click this button, it’s going to ask you if you want to retweet to your followers and then you simply click yes. So, once that happens your followers are going to see a message that looks like this. See how there is this little icon right here with these arrows and you see the same icon repeated right here? It says retweets from people you follow appear in your timeline.
So, I actually don’t follow this person, Paidz. This is a retweet from someone else that I follow so it has a little retweet button in front of it so that I can see why this person who doesn’t normally show up in my stream is showing up. So, if you’re seeing people who you don’t follow show up on twitter.com, that’s why. It’s because somebody else has retweeted one of their messages and so you’re seeing it on your homepage. So, again the first way to retweet is just to click this little retweet link by whatever tweet you want to retweet and then click yes.
The second way, kind of the old school way, the way people used to do it on Twitter, is just to copy and paste what someone wrote. So, let’s find a simple one here. So if I want to retweet this tweet from Phil Macnevin, all I do is literally copy what he wrote, paste it into my twitter box here and then I’m going to write rt@philmacnevin and then his tweet comes up. So what this means is ‘rt’ stands for retweet, I need to make sure to put the @ sign in front of his name so that it will show up as a clickable tweeter name just like this one right here and this one right here, and then I paste in his message. So the way – the traditional or old school, it’s kind of funny to say that about Twitter right, the original way to do a retweet is to just simply copy and paste the entire tweet just like this. You want to paste it into your little tweet box and then you want to put an ‘rt’ on the front to show that it’s a retweet and you want to make sure to put the @ sign so that their name comes up as a clickable Twitter link just like these.
You need to make sure that the spacing is correct too. There needs to be a space between ‘rt’ and the name and there cannot be a space between the @ sign and the name. So, to retweet this I just paste it in here and click update. So again that’s one way and the other way is to click this little retweet button. This was Laura Roeder showing you how to retweet.
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 =-.
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.
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 =-.
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!
Feb 16, 2010
thanks for this info, very informative for first time twitter users like me
Apr 30, 2010
Great video
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. =)
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.
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.
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!
Jun 16, 2011
Three minutes and twenty seconds to communicate what should be about 10 words.
Fail.
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
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?
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.
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.
Dec 06, 2011
Thanks for posting this video. Something so simple shouldn’t be so difficult to figure out!