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One of the great things about Twitter is that it’s very easy to share information.
When you’re using a Twitter client, you’ll find it even easier to use Twitter, but the sharing is fairly the same. I’m talking about retweeting.
If you find the information on Twitter, you can share it with just a single click. That’s the power of retweets. But when you find some interesting information on a blog, you’ll have to write your own tweet in order to share the information.
This doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s usually not a single click.
Make it as easy as possible
When you want people to share information, you’ll need to make it as easy as possible. A single click would be awesome, but if that’s not possible, try to think of a way to make it as easy as possible to share.
If it’s not easy, people won’t share it.
Ask people to share it
If you don’t ask people to share the information, people are not as likely to share it.
I’ve read a lot of awesome and really powerful articles, but as soon as I finish reading I jump to the next article. This happens a lot. I forget to share, even though I really wanted to.
I need a message, something like, “please share this article”. If you add this, I’ll share it if I enjoy it.
The power of retweet buttons
When it comes to sharing on Twitter, one of the most powerful things I’ve experienced is the retweet buttons.
By having a retweet button, you’re really asking the reader to retweet your blog post / article even though you haven’t asked the question.
If I read a blog post, and I see a retweet button, I’ll click. I often click on it just because it’s there, even though I didn’t really think that the blog post was that good. It just feels good clicking and thinking that I shared what I just read with all my friends.
About that.
I’m a little curious about where to add the retweet button. Is it better to have it visible at the top of the blog post, or at the bottom? Should it be fairly big, or the small version?
Here’s a few screen shots of some of my favorite blogs that are using the retweet button.
I’m not sure if it matters, but I’m sure that what’s really important is to add the button.
Finally.
Here are some retweet buttons for you:
Easy Retweet Button
Get a ReTweet Button for your blog (TwiTip)
9 Useful Twitter Retweet Button Scripts
Topsy Retweet Button for Websites
Best WordPress plugins for adding Twitter Retweet buttons on your blog
View Comments to “How To Get More Retweets”
This one question about Button placement always confuse me..
I believe every blog should add it at the top and also at the bottom .. So regular readers can quickly tweet it and one time readers can tweet after completely reading the post…..
Another advice would be add the button at the homepage , this increases the chance of getting more tweets…
So funny that the basic things are usually the most overlooked!
Like just ask!
And since I put my “tweet” button on each article… way better response. Good stuff.
Never thought about adding the button both at the top and the bottom, but you got a point.
The only problem I see is that it can be too many buttons if we include digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc…
If we only include a retweet button, it can be added both at the top and bottom. But what about the size, does it matter if it's big or small? I'm not sure…
Size always matters Jens. I believe Larger one perform much better and thats what I use on my blog.
Yes, the basic things are overlooked by a lot of people. Asking for help is usually the best way to get noticed and to… get help
I should probably add the big button to slymarketing.com, I'm testing the small one at the moment…. and only at the bottom. It's not working as well as I was hoping
[...] How To Get More Retweets http://twittervirtue.com/archives/how-to-get-more-retweets/ [...]
Button on homepage only submits the homepage url instead of post, but I add button to homepage and all single.php pages. I keep all my buttons at top instead of bottom because of redundancy and when you use both buttons it increases your pageload time.
I agree that having a button on there makes a big difference. I thought about putting one at the bottom too but idk, I think that comes down a matter of preference. I don't like to come off as too pushy so I just leave the one.
Another way you can add a button is something like Sharethis or SexyBookMarks which is an attractive little plugin that you can put right under your post (or wherever I think…).
I have it on my other blog and it looks real nice and I think is probably along the same lines as people like to click on it.
Bigger can be better, but too big is annoying
Cool post and I'm glad to see you like my blog, thank you so much.
I have tried both Sharethis and SexyBookMarks, but to me, the retweet button works better. I'm not sure if that's because my readers are using Twitter more than the other social networks…
You're welcome, keep blogging
I haven't added the buttons to the homepage, I've only added them to each blog post. Not sure if people would submit anything but blog posts to twitter?
If you have full posts on the homepage, many users who visit your homepage won't click on the post, and you should offer a way to submit and retweet right from the homepage. If you only do summary of posts on homepage, then probably fine to only have RT buttons on post.
I've never thought about that. That's a really good advice. Thanks a lot.
[...] know, I have written about how to get more retweets before, but this is [...]