Twitter 101 - Retweeting

I am continually asked "What is Twitter?"

First, I would say that Twitter is the new phenomenon! Okay, but that does not really answer your question, does it?

Think of Twitter as "micro-blogging."

For those who are familiar with blogs, you understand the concept of a "post." On Twitter, each "post" is only allowed 140 characters. For someone who talks a lot, this can be hard to refrain your keystrokes!

For those who do not own a blog, it is a great alternative to blogging. Let's say you do not want to set up an entire blog, but want to share freebies. Just upload your freebies to 4shared and do a "post" on Twitter! Ah, are the ideas beginning to roll in your mind?

Many of the same attributes that apply to blogging apply to twittering.
For instance, you can even subscribe to them through RSS! Use this url to subscribe to my twitter: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/12369462.rss#

But we really need to learn the Twitter 101 in baby steps and to focus on one thing at a time. Today, I want to focus on retweets.

TWITTER 101: Retweets

Retweets are vital to the community at Twitter.

You may remember my post on link love (here). In comparision to blogging, "retweets" are "link love."

Here is an example of how it works.

Kathy Moore tweeted about a new digital scrapbooking site which she designed (she's got an awesome site design business! -check it out). She has previously owned her own digisite and been a digi-designer, so many of you may be familiar with her.



I liked what Kathy shared, so I retweeted her. I simply copied her post by highlighting it and using "control c" for copy and then used "control v" to paste it into my compose box on Twitter. Thereafter, add "RT" for "retweet" before what was copied, plus the "@" symbol. Often, I type "RT @" in the compose box before pasting. If you have room, add a personal message to the retweet as I did.

Using the "@" symbol is important as it will make her twitter name clickable for others to follow and find out who posted the original tweet.

When you use the "@" symbol in your post, that person will be able to see that you have posted about them. Oh, the warm fuzzies of link love begin! Want someone to feel good? Just let them see you talking about them! As you can see, Kathy saw my post and thanked me for retweeting her!
You can also do multiple retweets. For instance, you could include me in the retweet of Kathy by posting "RT @hummieisme RT @KathyMoore latest site design: http://www.onesingleseed.com/ " Oh, yep! That would be a double whammy warm fuzzie all in one post! Oh, the link love!

What does this really do? The more one post is retweeted, the more it travels through twitterland. Each person who retweets it is allowing all of their "followers" to read it and to think "hey, that KathyMoore has great posts, I'm going to click and follow her now!" Of course, the the retweet contains a link, as my example does, to an outside of twitter site, then it also drives traffic to that site with the more retweeting that happens.

Twitter is and can be all about getting good information out there to more people. I have been realizing that I am picking up good information through Twitter moreso than other places now. For instance, I recently learned quickly about Facebook's new TOU and then learned the next day that the TOU was withdrawn. When something big hits as news, you will see a lot of Twitters about it.

SOMETHING FOR YOU TO RETWEET

I have started something new in my twitters. Each day I am going to have a "digisite" of the day and a "resource of the day" for digital scrapbookers. Of course, it may be YOUR site I'm twittering and warm fuzzies may abound!

If all digital scrapbookers took a moment to retweet these posts, the link love to the sites could be very effective. Without the retweeting, they are stagnat.

I watch so many other types of sites use social media effectively, but digital scrapbookers just don't seem to get how it works. I would love to see us using the tools more effectively.

I tried to get everyone to do the Blog Carnival which is another great tool, but digital scrapbookers just did not get it and how it can impact either. Maybe, just maybe, I can get digital scrapbookers to use Twitter effectively, but it is going to take some selflessness to make it work.

If all your twitters (or posts on your blog) are about your own site, people will realize you are just there for marketing and it may backfire. If you give people link love and warm fuzzies, then people will continue to follow you.

It's always been about a community, not a sole marketing. I just wish that I could get people to understand. The digital scrapbooking community is a HUGE community. It seems so detatched from itself in the name of marketing, not ever wanting to accidentally advertise another site. I've blogged about this before.

Anyway, let the Twitter Link Love Retweeting in the digiscrapbooking world begin! Let's make ourselves known!