What is Retweet?

To retweet is to repeat/quote someone’s tweet. Say you come across an interesting tweet and you want to republish it so that people who follow you can see it too – you retweet it. The syntax of your tweet should start with the abbreviation RT or the word Retweet followed by the username of the person who tweeted it (e.g @User) and then finish with the content of the actual tweet. If you are not yet totally familiar with Twitter Abbreviations or Related Words, here is a list of the most Popular Twitter Terms, to assist you in your Tweeting experience.

Why Retweet?

To retweet someone else’s post/quote is without doubt one of the highest form of endorsement, or compliment, on the Twitter Universe (or Twitterverse). It’s important to know how to do this properly as this is part of the Twitiquette (Twitter Etiquette), especially when you are a beginner to Twitterland.

How To Retweet?

Let’s say that you found someone’s Tweet remarkable and you think it would great to share it with your followers. In this case, you would retweet it to share it with others. The way to do this is by adding a few characters in front of the tweet followed by the name of the original tweeter, such as:

Retweet or RT @ditesco The highest form of compliment on Twitter is the retweet. http://tinyurl…

It doesn’t really matter what characters you put first, when retweeting – it could be LOL or something more, like “Here is a good article on @twittnotes site and the url. But you DO have to put something before the @ in the person’s name. Remember that when retweeting you have to put some set of characters before the @name, or you will be only replying to the named person, and most probably other will not see or ingore the message.

Also, let us say that you want to pass further a retweet, then you would place another @name into the retweet chain like so.

RT @twittnotes @ditesco The highest form of compliment on Twitter is the retweet.

Many bloggers use Twitter to share their new posts. If a blogger has promoted a new blog post, by retweeting it, you’re helping drive traffic about that person’s work and essentially you are placing a sort of a seal of approval on that post.

Since a retweet is also a form of approval, it is a courtesy to thank someone who retweeted you. They are promoting you and your work for free, and that should be appreciated.