How to Get Me to Retweet You

Posted by Gabe on February 23, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media, Twitter | 6 Comments to Read

I should really call this post “How to (and how not to) Get Me to Retweet You” but that would probably break all the URL shorteners out there. I write this post because I often get people asking me to retweet them. These folks might think I’m just rude for not doing it. So be it. Maybe you will think a bit differently once you see why I didn’t retweet you. On that note I will start with “How Not to Get Me to Retweet You.”:

Ask me directly. By direct message or otherwise.
This simply doesn’t work with me, unless we have a long standing relationship. I know what you tweet is important to you, and you think that if I retweet it everything will be solved, but that’s simply not the case. You must understand that I get A LOT of these requests and if I obliged everyone no one would understand what my own platform is.

Retweet me.
Some think that if they retweet me to their 150 followers I should be obliged to retweet them back. I don’t care if you have a million followers, I don’t work that way either. The retweet is not a bartering tool. If you retweet me please do it because you liked what I wrote and not for any other reason. I will do the same for you.

Say “Please RT”.
Now many social media gurus will tell you that this is the best way to get retweeted, to add ‘Please RT’ or something similar to your tweet. I must admit I do use it myself sometimes. And I also admit I will do it if I know the person and I also know that they are genuine. But if you do it all the time I for one will stop reading your tweets. I retweet things that touch me in one way or another. It could be funny, silly or really meaningful and powerful. There is no way to know how a tweet will affect people. I am constantly surprised at which of my tweets get retweeted. Sometimes I think, ” Ok let this one go and watch the fireworks!” and all I hear are cricket sounds. Then I see another tweet has been RTed several times.

Now for “How to Get Me to Retweet You”:

Write something meaningful that touches me in some way. That is the huge secret to getting retweeted by me or by anyone. This morning I happened to see a tweet sent out by of all people the Cookie Monster (who I am not even following). I had to retweet it: “Me got hungry while typing and ate me computer mouse. Taste like chicken.” Now that made me laugh. Sometimes I retweet responses to my tweets if it makes more sense to do so. I retweet @HeiferPortland a lot because he tweets about kids supporting his organization. I stopped retweeting Amber Alerts because I later discovered that some of them were fake.

I also have to be able to see it to retweet it. I follow quite a few people and obviously can’t keep up with everything. So does that mean you should @reply to people so they will see the tweet when you want it retweeted? No – absolutely not. As a matter of fact that may cause an unfollow from me. I am in the same boat here. I see celebrities who have hundreds of thousands of followers and think “Boy, if they tweeted my ID just imagine how many more people would find out about Kids Are Heroes!” They usually aren’t following me so how do I get them to notice me? I can @reply to them. However, if I do that, that is making me look worse than if I did nothing at all. So what do I do? How do I get people to retweet me?

Converse with me. I try and write meaningful tweets and interact with people. Just like anything else, the way you get people to notice your tweets is to converse with them in a genuine manner. You can’t focus on being retweeted or it just won’t happen. Focus on the connections you have and the retweets will come.

Nellie Lytvinenko said,

perfect post! I don’t think that I’m Tweety savey enough. i do it for fun. and am thinking I can spend more productive time elsewhere (like washing dishes!)
I like talking face to face. having problems with all the “social media”
Twitter: @homesbynellie
Gabe said,

Hi Nellie,

Well I see that you are a realtor and let me tell you that once you see what it can do for you, you will embrace it. The down side is that you may wind up with a sink full of dirty dishes. :) I urge you to keep at it because real estate is no different than anything else. Connections are of utmost importance. Good luck!
Jacqui Taub said,

I have to admit, it’s the first time I’ve read anyone as open and honest as you are! Loved it. I live in Israel – and we just don’t use the expression “I shoot from the shoulder” because we’d be arrested – but wow Gabe – that’s what you do! Thank you!
Jacqui Taub
Twitter: @waussiekidsbook
Gabe said,

Thanks Jacqui,

Regarding ‘open and honest’ – is there any other way to be?

By the way – you weren’t the person who called me last week were you by any chance? A woman called me from Israel and I had to postpone the call by asking her to call me back. Sadly I never did hear back. If that was you I am sorry and please give me another chance. :)

-Gabe
intel_chris said,

Hi, Gabe,

Thanks for capturing this insight that it takes many a while to learn, but eventually we run across someone who says this (and not surprisingly you are not the first to say this). Guess what? The people who say this are the ones who are providing real content on twitter or on their blogs. These are the people worth following and worth reading.

There are people who are in “social media” who approach the world completely differently. Some of them have thousands of followers all whose goal is to have thousands of followers themselves, but none of them actually adding anything to the signal by actually writing about something in the real world.

Anyway, I don’t know if you will ever retweet me, nor if I will ever retweet you. We are kind of at the edges of each others interest list. You are trying to improve the lives of children. While, I am a nerd who care mostly about computer security. There is an overlap because protecting children on the net is probably in both our domains, but there are things that are just on one side of the intersection or the other, things that only you are interested in, or things that only interest me.

And, that is actually fine. The good news about our media is we don’t *have* to retweet each other, just because our interests overlap and we have some twitter friends in common. Still, I am happy to read what you write. And, if there is info that is to my mind of interest to my readers, I will retweet it (as you said, if I see it).

So, thank you, and best of luck,
Chris
Twitter: @intel_chris
Gabe said,

Thanks for your intelligent comment, Chris. Ironic that you call yourself “intel_chris”. Now after having looked at your Twitter profile I know it’s because that’s the company you work for. :)

Our interests may be closer than you think. By trade I am a software developer. As you have discovered, my real passion is with Kids Are Heroes. Regardless that doesn’t mean I only retweet things pertaining to kids. Sometimes I retweet the most innocuous of tweets that have nothing to do with kids – as long as they are interesting and/or entertaining in some way. The point is I bet I would be interested in what you do if I sat down with you and listened. At the same time I might be able to get you interested in kid heroes too!