Retweeting is one of Twitter's most used tools, and it's a great way to forward interesting tweets you've read to your followers. Twitter offers two ways to retweet, one manual and one automatic, each with its pros and cons. Read on to find out both.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Automatic Retweet
Step 1. Find out when to use automatic retweeting
Automatic retweeting basically consists of hitting the retweet button that the Twitter interface provides. In this way the selected tweet will be immediately shared with your followers, without giving you the possibility to add a comment. This is a great option if you want to quickly share a tweet or if you simply have nothing to add.
Step 2. Move the mouse cursor over the tweet you want to forward
You should see the "Retweet" option appear in the lower right corner of the tweet, between the "Reply" and "Favorite" items. Select the "Retweet" icon.
Step 3. Confirm the retweet
After selecting the icon to retweet, a pop-up window will appear showing the selected tweet. Press the "Retweet" button, located in the lower right corner to retweet.
Step 4. Understand that the selected tweet will now be shared with all your followers
The tweet will automatically appear on your followers page and on yours as a retweet. The original tweet author's name will appear at the top of the message, while your name will appear at the bottom, next to the retweet symbol.
Method 2 of 2: Manual Retweet
Step 1. Find out when to use manual retweet
Manual retweet, also known as classic retweet, is done by copying the text of a tweet and pasting it into the text field of a new tweet and then posting it from your account. This is usually the best way to retweet, as it gives you the ability to add questions and comments to the original tweet (as long as you stick to the 140 characters available). By using this option you will also have an additional chance to get noticed by the user who posted the original tweet.
- Using the classic Twitter web interface you have to manually copy and paste the tweet you want to share with your followers. However, by using Tweeter on iPhone or using the "Classic Retweet" extension for Chrome or Firefox, you will be able to automatically copy and paste text while still being able to edit it before publishing.
- Pay attention to the fact that manually retweeting without adding a comment of yours is not well regarded by the Tweeter community, as it appears as if the tweet were your content, which obviously is not true and which also denies the possibility to the person who wrote the original tweet to receive further retweets.
Step 2. Start a new tweet with the prefix "RT"
This is the abbreviation for retweet. Follow the abbreviation RT with a blank space.
You could also type the word "retweet" directly, but that wouldn't be very efficient as you only have 140 characters to add your comments
Step 3. Type "@" and the name of the user you are retweeting
Only the username is required, not the full name of the person or company. For example if you want to share a wikiHow tweet you have to write "RT @wikihow".
This step is necessary to give credit to the author of the original tweet and to ensure that your retweet appears on their page
Step 4. Copy the tweet you want to share with your followers
Paste it into the text field after the string "RT @username". Delete any unnecessary characters and check the URL very carefully to make sure it is correct.
If the text is too long, you can use abbreviations. However, avoid making changes to the text that could alter its meaning or omit important details of the original tweet
Step 5. Add your comments to the tweet
As long as your tweet is within the 140-character limit, you can add any kind of comments or questions before posting. Normally people after the "RT" string add their content at the beginning of the tweet, but no one forbids them from inserting it after pasting the original text.
- Your comments don't have to be long, complex, or deep. You can simply add a "Beautiful!" or "Must read!".
- As long as your comments are positive, your retweet will be seen as a compliment to the original tweet and you may even get a reply from the author!
Step 6. Press the "Tweet" button to post the message
Post the tweet as you normally do. It will appear on your followers page as well as on the original author page of the tweet.
Advice
- Some third party programs (eg TweetDeck) have different methods and tools for retweeting.
- Remember that using Twitter's automatic retweet method you cannot edit the text, which is seen as a limitation by some users.
- An alternative format for retweeting manually is to copy and paste the tweet and insert the text "(via @_) at the end of the message.
