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05/12/2011 by
6475 views

The Most Effective Ways To Get ReTweets Are…

In their strive to gain followers, some CMOs have assigned a community manager from their social agency to manage the brand’s social interactions. Some CMOs have an in-house FTE for that already. But what are the most effective ways to get retweets?

Should I start to explain that brands should behave human on social channels like Twitter? Meaning: don’t brag about yourself and don’t promote your products all the time?

Following others might be a good start. Using the Twitter page to have dialogues and social interactions might be smart.

Retweeting Tweets from followers and others could be very human and social too. And getting others to retweet your Tweets? Well, that looks pretty easy, right?


In fact getting retweets is very pragmatic and simple. Like most things are for human brands. If you want people to retweet your message: Simply ask them to do so!

But popping that question can be done in many ways. And the way you do that will influence the conversion rates of your retweets dramatcially. So what are the magic questions on Twitter?

But before you do, think about your target audience first. Ask your agencies’ strategist to think along. What are the most connecting and appealing questions that will make your brand fly on Twitter?

And next hire the best damn copywriter you can find in your social agency. Most digital agencies have great interactive art directors but no or very mediocre copywriters.

Social agencies are all about 140 characters (Twitter, Facebook), compelling seeding copy, connecting stories to passionate groups and social interactions on every channel: So your social agency must be able to offer the best copywriters available.

Oh and yes, basics are always: Content is King, Distribution is Queen and Metrics is the Emperor.

So the content in your Tweet must off course be A. extremely compelling, B. very witty or C. very relevant to people even to consider retweeting your message.

Their social status is depending on it: They will never Retweet lousy content, even if you beg Please Retweet. But seems like a no brainer, right?

If you have a base of followers or target audience that are: Screenagers or Gen-Y, you can use RT Pls or Pls RT easily.

Those targets are addicted to screens, ping or text for at least 2 hours per day, so they have invented terms like these years before your brand did. So keep it crisp, short and fitting their communication style.

But don’t go popi-jopy with your brand. If your brand’s tone of voice is formal, do not suddenly try to be hip, hot and happening towards screenagers. They will reject that way with: Act normal, grandpa!

If you have a tech loving audience or very advanced Twitter users: RT Pls or Pls RT can seriously increase your Retweets. They will even smile when you use terms like this. You will be up in their social status rank.

If you have a less advanced target audience, that might ne relatively new on Twitter, you might be smart to use: Please RT or RT Please. They might not understand RT Pls or Pls RT their first few months.

If your targets and followers are senior citizens, you might want to consider: Please Retweet. Starting with a kind request – with the word Please, might be more appreciated than you’d assume. Retweet Please is fine, but not maybe not perceived as gentle as Please Retweet.

If you think this guy must be a Freak, CSO or Conversionista – all are 3 are true. I love data and metrics. That’s why the internet is the true love of my life since 1994.

And if you don’t believe that there are magic words on Twitter? Check out this study done by Dan Zarella from Hubspot. He looked at the effects in over 10.000 of his Tweets and discovered very interesting insights.

Although Dan’s study does not answer the question on what works best at different target audiences, I love his study on popping the magic RT Pls questio

ns. Here a short and crisp overview. Link to Dan’s study can be found below.

Summarizing above metrics will show you that using Please Retweet gives you a share of 51% but Please RT will limit your throughput to 39%. Wow you’d increase your spread now easily with +11%.

Summarizing above metrics will show you that using Please Retweet might give you 3x more Retweets than Please RT. In my own Tweets that differnce is much lower: about 1,5x higher.

But here’s another thing you should think about: Are very short Tweets of 100 characters better than i.e. using 130 characters?

I tend to use longer tweets: mostly between 120 – 134 characters. I they respond 2x better than short Tweets- short like i.e. 100 characters.

So if you use longer Tweets like me (120-130 characters excluding Please RT) you should understand that Please ReTweet does not fit within 140 characters. That’s why I have been using Please RT more often.

This is what Dan stated about the length of his Tweets:
I started by analyzing the length of 200,000 link-containing tweets as well as the CTR the links in those tweets generated. I calculated CTR as the number of clicks on a link divided by the number of followers the user had when he/she tweeted it.

What I (=Dan) found was a little surprising. Up to about 130 characters, as the length of the tweet increased, so did the CTR (Click Through Rate).


So summary of my message:

Dear CMOs, you know content is king. And believe us: distribution is queen and metrics is the emperor. Online and social offer you great metrics which are available to help you.

Strategists think about your targets and objectives. Social copywriters and community managers can make or break your brand and reputation online.

This is a complete different ballgame that one-way communications through TV advertising. And no intern or in-house FTE with less than 3-5 years experience in social can deliver jobs like this.

Think about this: Your brand might just be your most valuble asset…

And living in a non linear or social world: Twitter also requests smart ways of using the # (hashtags).

And you should consider using photos and videos in your Tweets. And if you let me continue this rant, this will be a book, not blog post…

To Dan:
Enjoyed your studies and sharing is caring!

To my peers:

Please share your experience and metrics with us in the comments below. We would really love to hear from you…

Source: Hubspot Blog