Reader Melanie recently sent me this question:

"I'm wondering whether there are etiquette rules around retweeting. I often see tweets I think my tweeps might enjoy but don't want to offend by doing it incorrectly."

For those who don't know, on Twitter, retweeting is basically forwarding another person's post to your own followers. It's a great way to share the wealth of interesting info that finds its way into the Twitterverse.

The only rule I'm aware of for retweeting is that you MUST credit the person who wrote the original tweet. The most common way to do this is to write RT @USERNAME at the start of the tweet, where USERNAME is the person's Twitter handle. (Twitter will automatically convert the @USERNAME into a live link to the person's profile page.) Then you just copy and paste the person's post into the tweet.

For example, if I wrote a post saying, "The sky is falling!" and you wanted to share this with your followers, you would write:

RT @EKricfalusi The sky is falling!

A few notes:

• The credit doesn't have to appear at the front of the tweet and you can add your own comments to it if space permits. For example, you could say, Do NOT go outside! RT @EKricfalusi The sky is falling!
• The RT and the username don't have to appear beside each other as long as it's clear who the RT came from, e.g. @EKricfalusi Thanks for the heads-up! RT The sky is falling!
• If the original tweet is at or close to the 140-character limit for tweets, you will have to do some finagling to add in the credit info, because all those characters will count toward the limit as well. HINT: If you want YOUR tweet to be retweeted, make it short enough to add in RT @YOURUSERNAME to make it as easy as possible for others to do so!
• For some reason that remains a mystery to me, Twitter does not have a button that automatically composes the retweet. I would think that it would be a 30-second job for one of their programmers (since they have one that does something similar for @Replies) and they wouldn't have to search too far to see the demand for this obvious functionality.
• HOWEVER, if you use TweetDeck as your Twitter interface, it DOES have an automatic retweet function. (Mouse over person's pic and click straight arrow icon.) 'Nuff said.

I hope that helps explain how the retweet works. Thanks for asking the question, Melanie!

For more tips on using Twitter, check out some of my previous posts:

• Getting Started on Twitter
• I'm on Twitter! (Now What?)
• Four Ways To Engage Your Tweeps
• Manage Your Tweets with TweetDeck
• The Twitter Hash Tag: What Is It and How Do You Use It

And if you have any other specific questions, please e-mail me at F1@TechForLuddites.com.

Posted in How To,Reader Questions,TweetDeck,Twitter