Last week we discussed what retweeting is and how it’s commonly used — to share positive feedback about your business and promote alliances within your industry.
Another thing that you can do to add content to your Twitter feed is use quoted retweets. Retweeting directly just copies the original tweeter’s exact words and sends it to your followers. But you can customize your retweets a little more. For example:
1) You may want to tweet that message to someone in particular (rather than all of your followers) by adding their handle (starting with @).
2) Or you may want to add your own commentary or opinion via hashtag (starting with #).
3) Another thing you can do is actually comment on the tweet or reply to it, which might look something like this: “You’re very welcome! RT @originaltweeter Your company rocks, thanks so much!”
In some cases, you can use a “Quoted Retweet” button to keep the tweet intact while adding your own words. But some Twitter launchpads don’t come with that option, so you have to manually create a quoted retweet the old-fashioned way: with copy and paste.
The key thing to remember with a manual retweet is to use the “RT” so your readership knows it’s a retweet — plus, keep the original poster’s handle intact so they know you’re appreciating their original post and starting a discourse! They’ll be notified when you manually retweet because you’ll retain that @ toward their handle.