Here is the ninth column in the weekly Tuesday feature “WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: How to Use Social Media to Get Your Dream Job” by Yael K. Miller and Phyllis Zimbler Miller, co-founders of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing.
Yael and Phyllis are writing about the FICTIONAL CHARACTER Amy H., who will be a senior this fall at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in English. Find all the posts in this series, organized for your convenience, here.
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Last week Amy read Chapter 8 – “Learning to Participate on Twitter Effectively” – and she did the homework for effectively setting up a Twitter account.
Now Chapter 9 – “The Art of Retweeting on Twitter” – provides information on one of the most important Twitter functions/features. (The ebook notes that this information applies to Twitter.com – third-party Twitter applications may have different functions.)
Retweeting is about acknowledging the community of Twitter. You can’t know everything. When you retweet (RT), you’re saying that you’re connected to people who share information that you value.
Would you want to be connected to someone who doesn’t RT – who never publicly demonstrates that someone else has valuable information?
Imagine you see a tweet by @MillerMosaicLLC that says: Just ran into problem x; to fix it do [link to solution]
You then tweet: RT @MillerMosaicLLC Just ran into problem x; to fix it do [link to solution]
The RT before the Twitter username lets everyone know that you are retweeting the tweet of that person. Thus you are giving credit to the person who first tweeted the link.
Now you could actually add your own comment. One way of doing this is:
Good to know: RT @MillerMosaicLLC Just ran into problem x; to fix it do [link to solution]
Of course, all of this must fit into the 140-character limit for a tweet.
And sometimes you may see a doubly retweeted tweet, such as: RT @ZimblerMiller RT @MillerMosaicLLC Just ran into problem x; to fix it do [link to solution]
Many of the “rules” of Twitter are unwritten.
For example, if you are thanking someone for retweeting your tweet, it’s a very good idea to include what the tweet was and the original link so that people reading this new tweet aren’t left in the dark.
For example, @MillerMosaicLLC could tweet: @ZimblerMiller Thx 4 RT: Just ran into problem x; to fix it do [link to solution]
In this way, anyone joining the conversation at this point can still understand what’s being talked about.
However, unless a user is following both @MillerMosaicLLC and @ZimblerMiller, the user will not see the above tweet because of Twitter rules that govern tweets with an @ (reply). Or, in simple terms, unless you are following both people in a back-and-forth @ conversation, you will not see those tweets.
The ebook says that these retweet examples are “old style” retweets whose methods were created before Twitter added the specific retweet functionality.
In this newer method, when you retweet someone, your own Twitter photo shows rather than the photo of the person you are retweeting.
“New style” retweets are those that use Twitter’s retweet functionality – by clicking on the word “retweet” at the bottom right-hand side of a tweet.
In this case this is what you would see if you had such a RT in your Twitter stream:
The photo of the original user who first tweeted will be the photo that will appear rather than the photo of the person who is retweeting. Next to that photo will be a tiny icon consisting of a square with arrows. And at the bottom of the tweet it will read: “Retweeted by [user name]”
Many people, including those at Miller Mosaic, use the “old style” for retweeting because the old style makes it more obvious that it is a retweet. This also helps to avoid confusing people who are not following the original user who tweeted and thus can’t figure out what this strange photo is doing in the Twitter stream.
The homework for this week, then, is practicing retweeting in such a way that you share good information with your followers, bring yourself to the attention of people you want to connect with (by retweeting some of their tweets), and making sure that you don’t annoy your own followers by appearing to exclude them from an ongoing conversation.
Bonus tip: Remember, if you want to jumpstart your understanding of Twitter, check out the ebook “The Wonderful World of Twitter” at http://www.millermosaicllc.com/wonderful-world-twitter-ebook/ The information works for positioning yourself in front of people who might be interested in hiring you as well as working for business owners who want to position themselves in front of people who might be prospective clients/customers.
Phyllis and Yael hope you’ll sign up for new post notifications here at ebranding.me through the RSS feed or email. Then do the ebook assignments for yourself so you’re ready for next week.
And leave comments below if you have any questions on the material in this blog series “WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: How to Use Social Media to Get Your Dream Job.”
(c) 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) and Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) are the co-founders of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing. Phyllis and Yael are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. Get their free report “Twitter, Facebook and Your Website: A Beginning Blueprint for Harnessing the Power of 3 for Your Business” at www.MillerMosaicPowerof3.com
