So, we Twitter users all know that special feeling when get for about one second when we see that RT. For those of you that are not up on Twitter lingo--and Twitter does have its own lingo, RT stands for "Re-Tweet", which means that someone forwarded a Twitter message intially sent by someone else.
For us Twitter addicts, a RT gives us that one second of satisfaction that our content is appreciated by others. We also have particular appreciation for the person who sent the retweet.
The Truth About Retweets
But what really happens with that little retweet? One day I inadvertantly sent out a tweet with a link that didn't work. I still had 5 to 10 retweets from well-meaning friends. But clearly they didn't read what I had sent. And I don't blame them one bit because who has time to read all of the content that is sent over Twitter by those you follow? If you did read it all, then you most certainly would never get any work done.
There is no doubt that people are reading what is sent via Twitter and that retweets help spread good content and increase follower rates. But there's a tremendous dropoff between what is retweeted and what is read. And this matters because Twitter should be driving traffic to your site and contributing to your marketing funnel. Not just creating those annoying Tweet sounds on your desktop.
Comments?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. For more statistics on Twitter usage, see this infographic.
Rachel,
I totally agree. I've got 3000 followers on twitter and while I have consistently had lots of RT to validate my content I noticed how once I started adding links to my tweets and driving traffic to content on my site my RTs & mentions went down dramatically.
At first I was concerned that people didn't like the content on my site and became worried. But I noticed my site stats were increasing. So my conclusion is that more traffic = less re-tweets but isn't that the point anyway?!
I'll keep watching it over the next few weeks but I'm hoping thats the case. Thanks for your article.