If a ReTweet Falls in the Woods and No One Hears It, Does It Still Make a Sound?
June 15, 2009
by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia
The answer to the riddle in the subject line is: to get to the other side. Get it? The Twitter bird? The chicken? Ok, yes, that was corny, but I digress (seriously digress.)
The other day on Twitter, I tweeted:
Question: if everyone is RT'ing, who's saying something?
I typed it a bit tongue-in-cheek, but as with most things; when I look back on it, I was a bit serious.
Unbeknown to many people my activities on Twitter for the past several months have been a bit of a social experiment. I've been testing out my own hypotheses about Twitter and how people act in general -- and I've been wrong about some of my guesstimations and deadly accurate about others. But, that's another post for another time...
I think we as a whole, we've taken a collective "left" as far as retweeting is concerned. Usually, it takes a marketing tactic like retweeting a little while to catch on, this time not so much. The general populace got the message that retweeting is, in general, a good thing and now everyone and their mother is retweeting - and that's both good and bad in my opinion.
Here's why it's good:
- People are sharing ideas and as a result actionable business information, trends and news are being spread that much easier.
- People are sharing their information with the knowledge that it will be RT'd, and that means folks are now, more than ever, willing to have their ideas leave their head and be wrangled and corraled by others. (Sharing is charing!)
- A good RT can save you time when seen across the "life" of your social media involvement. In other words, it's less content you actually have to write yourself, but you're still contributing quality content to the conversation (provided that you only RT informative twwets - PLEASE).
Here's why it's bad:
- People are starting to use RT's as a crutch. No one is taking the time to share their OWN content. Bummer. C'mon don't be lazy.
- People are retweeting crappy tweets. Stop it already.
- Many don't understand if you turn into a serial retweeter and I'm following you, I might stop following you and follow the people you RT (This doesn't happen a lot, but if you RT a few people, it could happen. If you RT a lot of smart people, then retweeting might be a good tactic for you.)
- Because everyone is retweeting everyone, it becomes confusing as to who said what first and the right person doesn't get the "credit" for their insights.
A good rule of thumb is, depending on how much you actually use Twitter, you should try to retweet a few times per week to keep the sharing vibe going and to let your followers know you're tapped into content they value. (Remember, Twitter is not all about you.)
What do you think?
Do you think retweeting has gotten out of hand?
How often do you tweet?
How often do you RT?
What criteria do you use to determine if something is worth retweeting?
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