8 Ways to Get Others to Retweet Your Content

Over the years Twitter has continued to grow their audience and engagement.For those still on the fence about whether or not to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, here are some statistics from Search Engine Watch, which hint at the massive popularity (and future growth) of the Global social media platform.

Twitter had 320 million monthly active users as of December 2015
79% of Twitter accounts exist outside the USA
80% of active Twitter users are on mobile
500 million tweets are sent per day
The volume of Tweets is growing at 30% per year
There are 1 billion unique visits per month to websites that have embedded tweets
Over 35 languages are supported by Twitter
More than 30% of online adults using Twitter are under 50 years of age
Twitter’s worldwide advertising revenue projected for 2016 is $2,444 million
It earned more than $2.22 billion US dollars annual revenue in 2015

via Social Marketing Forum

But everything isn’t hunky dory for the platform. Recently, Twitter was the news again for bringing about some (controversial) changes, which includes a Facebook-style algorithm-based timeline and the 10,000 character limit. Like any news that makes waves in the digital marketing world, there was a lot of buzz surrounding these updates.

And yet, the magic of this social media channel is far from fading for content marketers, who are keen to make the most of the new features and updates, which include but are not limited to:

New Timeline

Many Twitter users consider this updated timeline to be a rip-off of Facebook’s Timeline, Twitter’s algorithm-based timeline is more on the lines of resurrecting the ‘while you were away feature’. Instead of tweets lists arranged according to the time, you get to see tweets that are recommended by the platform.

However, designed for users to catch up on tweets that are more inclined towards their interests, the revamped timeline could actually make people Tweet and Retweet more, giving a boost to real-time engagement.

It may take a while for businesses to figure out how the algorithm works and how they can make it to the list of recommended tweets. But once they are there, the chances of getting their tweets retweeted becomes manifold.

Cards

Twitter Cards are a marketers’ delight. They can be used to attach high-quality media to Tweets and drive traffic to a business’s website. Summary, app and player card are some of the variants, which Twitter brings to the table and can significantly affect the conversion rates for businesses.

So, maybe, if businesses were to take advantage of the cards and revamped their tweets in the whole ‘card format’, then it may capture their target audience’s attention.

Heart Icon

“I heart you” got a new meaning on Twitter!

The star icon for ‘favoriting’ tweets has been changed to hearts. This small, but significant move in the interface was aimed at making Twitter easier to use for newbies. With competitors Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram adopting this universal icon to show interest or like for posts, Twitter won’t be left out.

This provides a green signal to marketers, who want to reach out to their newer target audience members, who have just started using the platform.

The entire prospect of user engagement on social media makes marketer rub their hands in glee and Twitter polls adds to their excitement. They are among the best things to happen on Twitter as they facilitate conversations and opinion sharing or generating quick feedbacks. This holds true for retweeting the poll as well.

GIF Search

GIFs are ruling the internet and Twitter in particular. Now, it is easy for users to share GIFs in their tweets and DMs. Because of their interesting nature and scope for experimentation, GIFs make the perfect ‘retweet material’.

Live Broadcasts

via Twitter

People on social media have a thing for live broadcasts. Twitter makes it easy for people to view Periscope broadcasts in the tweets without having to open the Periscope app. They don’t even need an account on Periscope for this!

These are some of the new features of Twitter, which call for a rich user-experience.

The statistics and the potentials of this platform make it a favorite with content marketers. They look forward to using it to boost conversions and subsequently, sales.

As a part of their promotional strategies, they ensure that the content created, be it images, GIFs, videos, blogs, white papers, ebooks, podcasts etc. is shared or retweeted to the max.

Here are some of the steps that they take in this direction:

Schedule it right: Just like every other social media platform, Tweeting at the right time plays a massive role in guaranteeing maximum retweets. Although there is no one-size-fits-all policy for this, you can safely cast your ‘retweet nets’ based on these suggests by Entrepreneur.com:
- Noon to 1 p.m. (read lunchtime) is a favorite time for tweeting but it is not the most effective time.
- 2 a.m. to 3.p.m. is the best time to send out tweets with links. This ensures maximum number of clicks on the links.
- 11.p.m and 5.a.m is the time for maximum engagement per tweet and peaks between 2.a.m. and 3.p.m.
- Consider timezones – local and international, based on your target audiences to schedule the tweets.
Use call-to-action buzzwords: When you want a retweet, ask for it. No shame in it. Go blatant with buzzwords like ‘Do retweet!’, ‘Like the write-up? Retweet it.’, ‘Show us some love. Retweet the post.’, ‘RT the post’, ‘Please Retweet’ and so on. These will definitely increase the chance of retweets manifold.
Use URLs in the tweets: People turn to Twitter to get current/live updates of the happenings around them. They also use the platform to gain information on something and for catching up on the quips made by the who’s who! One of the ways to catch their attention is to provide them a meaty headline or text with a URL — Studies show that tweets with embedded links are retweeted 86% more than those without links.
Use Hashtags: One can’t simply stress enough on the importance of hashtags. Using one or a couple of hashtags guarantee 21% more engagement from the users. Do a research on the best hashtags to use for your target audience and use them while tweeting the content. And don’t forget to follow the hashtags usage guidelines to the T for best outcomes.
Choose the right words: Selection of words and phrases matter on Twitter not only because of the limited character rule, but due to the fact that certain words find more favor from the users than others. Take a look at this guide to get a better perspective on using the best wording and phrases to generate maximum retweets.
Mention your followers: As a content marketer, you must have a network of followers, which also includes influencers of the market niche. Use the @mention for the influencers, thought leaders or other prominent Twitter users to get more people to see your tweet and get retweeted. The caveat here, is to ensure that you mention them only when the content is relevant to the industry they are connected with.

Embed Retweet buttons on your website: If you have a website or a blog and post your content regularly on them, then you can also embed retweet buttons on the sites for the posts. This makes it easy for Twitter users who visit the website, to retweet interesting posts to their followers.
Retweet for retweet: Follow for follow is something that all digital marketers are aware of. The same goes for retweeting. Retweet the tweets made by people in your niche. It increases the chance of getting more retweets.

Twitter may lag behind its counterparts in terms of growth, but it still has a large base of users and loyal followers. This is why, it still makes sense for content marketers to use the platform to promote their content and explore ways to increase the retweets. What’s your take on this? Do share your opinion on the topic with us. We’re all ears!