I’m not trying to be controversial with this post - promise! I just wanted to put something out there for people to think about.
I am always VERY grateful to anybody that takes the time to
re-tweet one of my tweets and help spread the SAS word! Re-tweets are an integral
part of Twitter and they help you find new people to follow and are a great way
to show support to people who you engage with on a regular basis.
The only little niggle I have, OK big niggle I have is when
someone uses an app (I believe Hootsuite is the main culprit) and they re-tweet
my tweet so it shows up as “RT @SAS_Stacey…(TWEET)…..” with their profile pic
next to it.
Now, please don’t think it me being precious about my picture
it’s more to do with the fact how it may be read by other tweeps, especially
those new to Twitter.
Lots of the people I’ve introduced to Twitter have asked
what it means and get confused by the layout as they think it’s a tweet from
the person with their picture next to it – they don’t understand it’s an app
and that tweet actually came from someone else.
It’s even harder to explain when the tweet gets cut off and
the last part of the tweet or more importantly any links are lost. I write my
auto tweets/tweets specifically to get the most out of the 140 characters so it’s a
little disheartening when they get cropped.
The last thing to think about using this method of re-tweet,
is how it will look on your account feed. Take a look a mine for example:
 |
There is varied mix of my tweets and those that I’ve
re-tweeted so you can see a variety of profile pics. When you use the RT@..... method
your account feed will only show your picture and at first glance people may think
you’re just all talk, so it may be losing you potential followers; especially
if new users are looking at your account and don’t understand how to read the
tweets in your feed.
I know no one is doing it intentionally, I expect the
majority of people don’t even realise they’re doing it! It’s just something to
think about when you hit that ‘re-tweet’ button.
The only time I think this works is when you do a 'quote' to add a comment or something to the tweet; this is engagement and what Twitter is all about.
Regardless of what method of re-tweet you use though, I’ll always
thank you as I’m always very appreciative :)
Oh, one last thing – please don’t think I don’t like
Hootsuite, I LOVE it! I use it for setting all my auto tweets – but that’s it.
I don’t use it for my interactions, the main Twitter desktop
version is my usual tweeting perch! ;)
