How do I retweet in Twitter?
By Michael W. Jones
Sometimes on Twitter, a user will see something so interesting that it deserves to have a wider audience. It is possible to make that happen by using the “retweet” technique. Learn how to retweet below!
First, a definition. ReTweet, as used on the social networking and micro-blogging service Twitter, means to re-post something posted by another user, preceded by the original username in order to give credit to the poster, who “tweeted” the message in the first place. If any of these terms stop you in your tracks, see the partial glossary at the bottom of this column.
The easy answer to the question, and the one that works on your page at the Twitter site, is to copy the original tweet, then paste it into your “What are you doing” tweetbox at the top of the page. With the original message in your tweetbox, insert the cursor before the first character in the original tweet and type “RT @” then click on the “update” command button. You will be turning “Tweeter’s Original Tweet” into “RT @Tweeter’s Original Tweet.” The “RT” is an unofficial, but universally recognized, abbreviation for “ReTweet” and the “@” symbol identifies the person that tweeted the original. In other words, you will be turning this
into this:
Of course, you would not retweet your own post, as that would be bad form.
There are many applications that let you run Twitter on your desktop without having your browser open or having the Twitter site in an active tab. Many of these third-party applications have an easier method for retweeting. One of the most popular of these apps is named Twhirl. If you hover over the avatar of the person who posted the tweet that you want to retweet, a graphic containing four icons will overlay the avatar, like this:
If you click on the avatar circled in red, Twhirl will automatically make the necessary text additions and place the newly built retweet in your Twhirl tweetbox. Other third party programs have a different way of doing this, or may not do it at all.
The intent of all this is to give more members of Twitter a look at that original tweet, and most likely whatever it was promoting, usually via a link. This is because follower lists in Twitter rarely overlap exactly. If tweeter A and tweeter B each have 300 followers, it is likely that only 100 of them are the same people. So when user B retweets something from user A, he is giving 200 more people a look at what member A said. This is how things go viral. Enough retweets, and a lot of people have a chance to see that original tweet!
Abbreviated Twitter Glossary
Follower – On Twitter, people follow other twitter people. Twitter members can see the tweets of other twitter member that they follow. One can be a follower, or one can be followed, or both. Members that follow each other are also known as “friends.”
Post – See tweet.
Retweet – to re-post something posted by another user, preceded by the original username in order to give credit to the poster, who “tweeted” the message in the first place.
Tweet – A micro-blog post on the Twitter social network site (noun) or to post a micro-blog post via Twitter (verb). In any case, a tweet is a message to other Twitter users that follow you, less than or exactly 140 characters in length.
Tweetbox – The text box into which a user types the message which he or she will be sending to all their followers.
Twhirl – A third-party application, owned by Seesmic and using the Adobe Air utility to access data from the Twitter application database via its Application Programmer Interface (API).
Twitter – Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known, as tweets.
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