Want to Get Retweeted? Think Small and Timely.

36 Points

Anyone out there who's trying to get retweeted knows that it's harder than you think - sometimes the tweets you most expect will get retweeted don't, and you're left asking yourself, "What's so great about that guy's tweets that they get retweeted all the time, but mine never do?"

There are three factors that I think determine whether or not you'll get retweeted as often as you want:

1) The length of your username. Remember, the longer your username, the less space there is to retweet. When people retweet, they typically format it as "RT @username: your tweet here." So if you want to get retweeted, make sure you've chosen a nice, short Twitter username, so there's more room for thing to get retweeted over and over again.

2) The length of your tweet. Again, like 1) above, size matters. If you want to get retweeted often, make sure you leave a lot of space in your tweet. Typically you should leave (5 + username length) characters free in your tweet. That'll make it much easier to get retweeted, since users won't have to edit your tweet in order to retweet you.

3) Your timing. If you really want to get retweeted, you need to determine when your target audience is most likely to be sitting in front of their twitter accounts. If you're tweeting out into a black hole of sleeping tweeple, don't expect to get retweeted much. On the other hand, if you're posting at peak hours, you're much more likely to see your tweets get retweeted. Try a Twitter analysis tool to determine when your followers are most active on Twitter.

Hopefully this advice will help you get retweeted more often and build your Twitter following faster.

May 11, 2009
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Comments
Twittown Comments
Submitted by shughes691 on Nov 21, 2009 02:47 says:
  • 0 votes

There are certain strategies that need to be implemented when you really want to get some attention from tweeple (twitter users).

So how do we command attention from people on twitter? Here is a list of actions that you can take to get that attention, and the more you do this the more attention you will be commanding. However it is possible to over do it, so be careful not to be tweeting too many times in the day.

Commanding Attention from the Twittervers:
1 - Interesting Tweets
2 - Legendary Quotes
3 - Open-Ended Question
4 - Embedded Cameos
5 - Topics to Rally Around
6 - Stay away from Politics and Religion
7 - Get conversation from gurus – ex. Hey @scott_hughes691 great information on your latest twitter blog post (people will usually respond to @ replies getting you noticed by their followers, some of which will jump over to follow you as well)

Try and keep your tweets under 120 characters this allows enough room for your followers to retweet your tweets and make them viral.

Hope this helps.

If interested I run a Twitter Tips blog that offers tips, training and suggestions for having maximum success on with your Twitter account. Head on over to Twitter Tips and check it out.

Submitted by Leeds Web (not verified) on Nov 19, 2009 00:26 says:
  • 0 votes

Yes your name displayed on the website is huge factor, shorter is better...People don't like wasteing time!

Submitted by Rob on Jun 8, 2009 17:22 says:
  • 0 votes

One GREAT tool I use for analyzing my followers tweet timings is Xefer - http://xefer.com/twitter - essentially, you plug in a twitter user's ID and it'll generate a visually stunning and easy-to-read graph showing when they tweet most. If you're looking to get retweeted by a particular user or small set of users, this is the tool for you - just put their usernames in, start the graph running and then look at them all together to find out what's the best time (the time when they graphs most overlap).

Try it out!

Submitted by Ben Sky (not verified) on Jun 8, 2009 07:13 says:
  • 0 votes

You mention a tool to analyse how many of your tweeps are active in point 3.. can anyone name or suggest such a tool??

Submitted by @dv8er Design Website (not verified) on Jun 7, 2009 16:01 says:
  • 0 votes

Great information, will RT; It's hard to post within 140 characters anyway, sometimes subtracting the 5+ username is tough, but definitely a great idea. Your subject matters also, as does the end-link (Links should be short, use link shortener when needed; it helps).
I appreciate your article.

Submitted by Rob on May 13, 2009 09:54 says:
  • 0 votes

One of the things I love the most about Twitter is how you kind of "organically" realize things. It wasn't until I started tweeting heavily that I noticed that my longest tweets were being "edited" by the retweeters. That was when I started to realize how important length is. I began to notice that the people who would get retweeted the most were the people whose tweets weren't perfect 140-character long tweets.

The username length is something I've realized since I started following @Ev - he always manages to get a few extra words into his tweets. Of course, that extra space means that he gets retweeted a lot more than other people do.

The timing thing is kind of the odd man out. It can be tough to figure out how to time your tweets. In a future article I'm going to share some tools and strategies that will help you to determine when the best time to tweet is if you're trying to get retweeted.

Submitted by Jamie Favreau (not verified) on May 12, 2009 13:11 says:
  • 0 votes

I am a huge fan of retweeting. I always try and do it. I do agree shorter is better just because you have to rephrase something. So it would be great to have a catchy headline. I just need to get better at creating one.

Submitted by amh615 (not verified) on May 11, 2009 22:43 says:
  • 0 votes

I have a few close friends I try to ReTweet for, but when they have already used the 140 characters and I have to try to figure out what to delete to make it short enough, it's just not worth the effort!