Do you want more Twitter traffic? Well, who doesn’t? One of the best ways to get more Twitter traffic is to get more re-tweets…but you already know that.

But do you know how to get more re-tweets? Other than the basic things like writing great content or adding Twitter buttons to your website, there have to be advanced ways to get more re-tweets, right?

Well, there are! Here are 10 ways to get more re-tweets:



1. Avoid least tweetable words

Out of 30 million tweets analyzed, here are the words that tend to be re-tweeted the least:

game going haha lol but watching work home night bed well sleep gonna hey tomorrow tired some back bored listening

And here are the most re-tweeted words:

you twitter please retweet post blog social free media help please retweet great social media 10 follow how to top blog post check out new blog post

If you are trying to get the most re-tweets, you should avoid using the least favorable words in your tweets and stick with the favorable ones instead.

2. Time your tweets

Did you know that 48% of Twitter users are based in Eastern Standard Time? Or that 6% of all re-tweets happen during 5PM EST? And if you want to get more specific, did you know that tweets that occur on Wednesday get the most visibility?

So, if you want to get the most re-tweets, consider tweeting out messages on Wednesday at 5PM EST.

3. Time people’s tweets

You already know that you can place Twitter buttons on your website to get more re-tweets, but wouldn’t you ideally want people to click the re-tweet button during 5PM EST?

If you just use the normal Twitter button, you can’t control when people re-tweet your content. But if you use the Buffer Twitter button, you can control when someone’s tweet goes out.

The way it works is that when people click the Buffer tweet button, it automatically pushes the tweet out during ideal times instead of pushing it out instantly. This way the tweets get the most visibility, which should help them get re-tweeted more.

4. Tweet quotes

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll notice that I tweet a lot of quotes. Whether it’s quotes I am coming up with or others are, they tend to get anywhere from 20 to a few hundred re-tweets.

The reason I tweet these quotes is because it’s not only causing my followers to get used to re-tweeting my stuff, but it’s also helping me grow my follower count.

Plus, if I tweet a quote and then tweet about something else within a minute, that second tweet tends to get re-tweeted an additional 4.1%. So, if you want to increase your re-tweets, start to tweet quotes.

5. Place re-tweet buttons throughout your blog posts

I wrote a blog post on “business advice in 3 words” last year, and the post got over 417 re-tweets. The reason it was so successful is because for every phrase I used to describe business, I added a tweet button next to it.

In total, the post had 54 re-tweet buttons. And out of the 417 plus re-tweets, 283 of them came from the 54 re-tweet buttons within the blog post.

Don’t be afraid to place re-tweet buttons within your copy whenever you have an interesting phrase that people may like. It can drastically increase the number of re-tweets you get. It has worked well for me and other blogs like On Startups.

6. Add links within your tweets

As simple as it may sound, there is a huge difference between tweets with a link and the ones without links.

If you look at the image above, you’ll notice that 18.96% of all tweets contain a link. But when it comes to re-tweets, a whopping 56.69% of them contain a link. So, if you want your tweets to be re-tweeted, you have better odds if you include a link.

7. Let people pay you with a tweet

Have you thought about a concept in which people can pay you with a tweet? For example, Simply Measured lets you gain access to some of its products if you tweet about the company. And if you want to use some of its advanced features without having to pay, it usually asks you to tweet about it again.

This method has helped the company attract over an extra 1,000 new customers each month.

Another example of this is to give away a free White Paper or E-book. In exchange to giving access to this free material, you can request a tweet, which should help you get more downloads.

8. Build relationships

Networking doesn’t have to take place offline. Every week, I try to get to know at least 5 Twitter users that have over 20,000 followers. I do so by direct messaging them, communicating with them through email, tweeting at them, and re-tweeting some of their tweets.

After my relationship with these users grows over time, every once in a while, I’ll ask them to re-tweet some of my tweets. And because they have a ton of followers, that tweet also gets re-tweeted a handful of times.

If you can build relationships with enough power users, you can ask them all at once to re-tweet some of your tweets, which should cause your numbers to go through the roof.

9. Use 1.62 Syllables per word

Simplicity isn’t the key to re-tweets. If your website has a higher readability grade level and you use more syllables per word, you’re more likely to get re-tweets.

If you look at the image above, you’ll notice that most re-tweets contain 1.62 syllables per tweet. While most tweets contain 1.58 syllables per word.

So don’t try to dumb things down…don’t be afraid to sound smart. 😉

10. People follow hashtags

Yes, people do follow people, but they also follow hashtags. Just look at the trending sections area on Twitter, or, better yet, check out Trendistic to see what hashtags are being used right now.

Did you know that 1% to 2% of the tweets on Twitter include hashtags? That may not sound like a lot, but with over 200 million tweets a day, anywhere from 2 to 4 million of them contain hashtags.

So, if you can leverage popular hashtags, your tweets will be more likely seen by others, which will cause more re-tweets.

Conclusion

Getting re-tweets isn’t an art, it’s a science. If you leverage the information above, you’ll maximize the number of re-tweets you get. Give it a whirl. Try just a few of the tips above, and you’ll start to see more re-tweets. I also created a handy infographic covering the art of getting retweets for your viewing pleasure below.