The Art of Retweeting and Favoriting on Twitter

Twitter is a vibrant platform where users engage not only in real-time conversations but also in sharing valuable content with their followers. Two key features in this context are retweet and favorite. These actions serve different purposes, often driven by personal preferences, brand strategies, or emergency circumstances. Understanding the nuances of these features can help users and brands craft effective content and interactions on the platform.

Personal Usage: Retweets and Favorites

In my personal experience, the decision to retweet or favorite content is heavily influenced by its importance, interest, and relevance. I retweet something if I believe it is significant, profound, cute, or funny, or if I agree with the author. Similarly, I favorite tweets as a digital bookmarking tool or simply because I find them good.

For instance, I agree with @Yuricon Erica about the differences between how individuals and brands use retweets and favorites:

Sorry Brands, you're losing Twitter followers due to RT-SPAM

In my LinkedIn post, I detailed these differences. Brands often overuse retweets, leading to spam and diminished engagement. The way individuals use these features is more nuanced and impactful.

Brand Usage: Retweets and Favorites

The strategic use of retweets and favorites by brands can significantly impact their follower engagement and brand visibility. Here, the differences become more pronounced:

Retweet: Brands can use retweets to promote their content and generate conversation. This helps in organically building a community around their brand. For example, retweeting posts related to specific topics where the brand has established credibility. Favorite: Favorites are often used as a way to save content for later review or bookmarking. This feature is valuable for gathering insights and saving links for future reference.

My Personal Approach to Retweeting and Favoriting

In my personal use, I employ retweets and favorites in a thoughtful manner:

Retweets

Creating Conversation: I use retweets to engage with content and generate discussions. This can help in shaping my own thinking and also foster connections within my network. Emergency Requests: I retweet emergency requests, such as blood donation campaigns, from reliable sources or individuals I trust.

During the Mumbai terror siege in 2008, I wrote about how to use retweets effectively in emergencies:

En cas d'urgence …

Favorites

Bookmarking: I use favorites as a digital bookmarking tool, saving tweets for later review. This is particularly useful for saving articles to read or for gathering insights. Linked Articles: Favorite tweets often include links to articles. I use my IFTTT task to forward these tweets to my Evernote account. If the content is engaging, I read the article and add it to my Delicious bookmarks. Otherwise, I delete the tweet from Evernote. Developing Ideas: Brilliant tweets can inspire new ideas or refine existing ones. My favorite list often includes the titles or introductions of articles I want to read in detail, rather than the tweets themselves.

The use of favorites and retweets, whether for personal engagement or brand strategy, can greatly enhance the value and reach of tweets. By understanding the purpose and impact of each action, users can leverage these features more effectively on Twitter.