A retweet is to re-post or reTweet of someone else’s Twitter update.
It’s an easy way to spread information and/or to acknowledge a good piece of tweeting (or linking).
This is a standard that evolved independently of Twitter, although Twitter has since adopted its own method of doing it (see below)
Format
There are several formats deemed acceptable that credits the original Twitter user:
You can start off with ‘Retweet’ or ‘RT’ for short and then include the original Twitter user’s username prefixed by the @sign. This enables the Twitter user to see your tweet (because it will appear in their replies section of their profile) and allows other people following your timeline to visit their profile directly by clicking on the name.
Next, you can put the title of the Tweet if there is room and / or put the URL in the Tweet by cutting and pasting it OR by clicking on the Twitter update time (underneath the post) to grab a URL directing users to the Tweet.
Standards
Certain standards have been establised along the way:
- You can add your own comment, if there’s room
- If you can, leave in all the RT names that are in there. If you have to remove some, at least leave the original twitterer (the source)
- You can edit the original tweet so it fits with any comments or RT stuff, but not so it alters the meaning, blurs the line between what is your comment and what is the orginal twitterer’s. Most important, of course, is the original link, if there was one.
Retweeting via the Twitter page
Unfortunately, Twitter has changed the way retweeting works on its website, so if you use Twitter’s website to retweet something, you’ll find you’re not able to add your own comments easily. This is how retweet works in Twitter:
Click on the Retweet button beneath a tweet. Click Yes to confirm:
This will appear like this on your timeline:
To retweet the old way, you need to select a copy the contacts of a tweet, and then hit reply.
Paste in the text, type RT before the user’s name and then make any adjustments you want before hitting Tweet:
