Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth

Agreed. I often will track the spread of my tweets as they cascade across the Twittersphere. It definitely is a great way to understand what an audience finds valuable.

From a blog perspective I think citing a another person’s post in your own post shows similar support of an idea – which of course is also easily tracked. Both, concepts not only highlight valued ideas within a network but also point to the originator’s influence.

On a personal note I’ve also shared what I thought was a cool piece of information, but off topic of what I usually share, and I’ve seen it have little uptake. This goes back to the relevance of information shared, the originator’s topical influence and the audience’s interest in that piece of information (interest and relevance determining it’s value). Of course the spread would also depend on how similar each individual’s networks are similar in terms of interest in a topic. The idea would spread more quickly when the audiences of the originator’s audience also were interested in the same topic.

All fascinating stuff. Thanks for the kicking off the discussion of it. I look forward to the responses of others.

Great post Jeremiah – I think those who have been retweeting and have benefited from retweets sometimes just assume that is part of the fabric of using twitter. What is becoming more and more useful are aggregators for links posted. Do you use http://twitturly.com or other similar tools? It’s like a Digg for tweets, but based on number of times a link has been shared. If one assumes that a valuable link will be retweeted by legitimate users, as opposed to spam, one might be able to assume that important/popular links can be found this way. Sometimes I check there first if I’ve been off the twitter grid for awhile.

Thanks and like David I look forward to seeing more discussion on this.

Speaking of useful aggregators for links posted that also have a digg-like utility, I’ve been using http://www.poprl.com lately.

Has anyone used Visible Technologies for social media measurement? How does it compare to Buzz Logic, Cymfony, Buzzmetrics or Radian6?

Retweeting is the biggest factor in something “going viral” on Twitter. When I see a news story or smart post I love giving that microblogger the credit for its discovery or creation. While it does the obvious service of spreading a certain piece of content. It also helps establish stronger relationships within this social network. When people honor me and retweet my blog posts, I always thank them personally. Free advertising is a huge compliment.

[...] It’s a great post (as usual) and you can read the whole thing – Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth – here. [...]

You wrote:

“In some ways, long form blog posts like this seem so much slower and plodding compared to how quickly information can come and go in Twitter.”

The difference is you are not spreading news here, you are spreading strategy. There is still a need for deeper thought.

Blogs have evolved into places for longer discussion, not all of us have the attention span of a gnat. Some of us enjoy your long posts.

I wouldn’t call it “plodding” I would call it deep.

Jeremiah: Thanks for the ‘retweet how-to’ link and mention of Shel’s post. I’ll be checking them both out shortly.

As David mentioned, citing other blogs in our posts is easy to do (and often second nature), but finding the best way to share on Twitter can sometimes be more difficult. Many times upon retweeting something I want to add my own comments, but also don’t want to confuse it with the message I am relaying on.

I’ve also found that depending on who is part of your network (local users versus a national audience), retweets can quickly clog up a stream.

However, all that being said, it is amazing to see how viral a message can become with the quick-publishing power we all have in microblogging. It used to be amazing to see how many people would blog and reblog about something, but retweeting has the ability to spread much farther, much faster.

[...] 11/23/08, 4:04pm: Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) shared some of his own thoughts on the infectious power of retweeting today, as well as a link to “the Art and Science of Retweeting“, from AJ Vaynerchuk [...]

[...] just read Jeremiah Owyang’s post – Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth. Being extremely interested in word of mouth and viral, these are my first [...]

Great post!

Not only is this a phenomenon that spreads a meme faster to new networks through weak ties.

The retweet also reinforces the meme within the smaller network, as there is probably considerable overlap of connections within it. Receiving the tweet, and the following retweets, reinforces the meme through social proof. More people are paying attention to this particular idea, which makes us more likely to pay attention to it ourselves.

It is only the individual nodes on the fringes, with just one connection within the network, and the rest of their connections in other networks, that can retweet the meme without overlap.

I guess this can occur up until some kind of saturation point, when there is no real use retweeting it anymore.

I think the monitoring of microblogs in general is important, but monitoring retweets adds an extra dimension, as it is basically monitoring memes that have proved themselves as having viral potential.

Thanks Adam. Isn’t it funny we would call blog posts deep, we used to say that about novels and books!

In blogs, we’d used to say that ‘links’ were the most valuable aspect.

Now it’s retweets.

[...] like Jeremiah Owyang wrote in a comment on his great blog post on the same topic, retweets could be a better way to [...]

[...] Another fellow blogger placed an observative post today on Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of MouthHere’s a quick excerptAbout · Contact · Web Strategy Vault · Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing. Jeremiah Owyang discusses how web tools and social media enable companies to connect with customers … [...]

Retweeting is powerful!

A couple of things – for your search it’s important to search for: retweet, RT other variations that people are using

In our SM monitoring tool, Techrigy SM2, we can filter the Twitter results by retweet, RT, etc That takes you to a very granular level where you can determine velocity.

I think it’s more important to look at the high level & watch the conversations as they shift from twitter to other sources & easily identify the influencers in each source type (then respond asap).
connie@techrigy.com

Nice post. I’m a big believer in the power of social influence at all points in the marketing funnel and did some grad level research into it. For those interested in some of the research behind influence and how to leverage it, this Adweek article of mine maybe of interest – http://www.goingsocialnow.com/2008/11/academia-meets-social-marketin.html

Nice post Jeremiah. Readers of your blog maybe interested in checking out or joining the Word of Mouth Marketing Association or WOMMA (womma.org). The organization was founded by some of today’s leading experts in WOM. They also have some great case studies for those interested. To Adam Gershenbaum feel free to ping me to connect you with some folks that are using Visible Technologies software.

Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies

As one of the most prolific retweeters around, I want to give a shout out to twhirl for encouraging retweet behavior by giving a simple button to do it. I don’t think I would ever have adopted retweeting with such gusto without that easy feature.

This example illustrates just how important architectural choices are in creating viral applications.

What’s so wonderful about twitter is that its minimal interface has led to an explosion of user and third-party application innovation. It’s a bit like what Alexander Pope said about writing in rhymed couplets: the limits of the form made his creativity shoot out, as water from a fountain.

I am all in for Word of Mouth, nothing against anyone but isn’t retweet a part of something that people in the social media circles refer to as “Echo Chamber” ? Not only this re-tweeting also leads IMHO to more scattered conversations which call for new tools to collate them all.

I think there can be(are) better ways of sharing good content without the above mentioned ills

My 2 cents

[...] of the simple-but-powerful aspects of Twitter is the ability to quickly spread a message using the “r…. Jeremiah Owyang describes the feature as well as how you might factor it in to your [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth A retweet is when one individual copies a tweet from someone in their network and shares it with their network. It’s perhaps the highest degree of content approval, it means that the content was so valuable and important that they were willing to share it with their network –causing it to spread from one community to the next –retweets are the core essence of the viral aspect of content spreading. (Tags: retweet viral twitter marketing socialmedia) [...]

I’ve been using budurl.com in many of my tweets just to check out the metrics they provide (that’s to say, this is not a paid endorsement or anything) and they indicate the definite power of the retweet. My links that have been retweeted by friends/followers definitely have the highest clickthrough rates.

I see that Adam Cohen mentioned twitturly.com — I’ve been wondering about them because they tend to generate the highest number of clickthroughs for those budurls that get retweeted. A “Digg for tweets”, huh? I’ll be keeping my eye on that one.

[...] of ink (pixels) have been written about how to use twitter, brands who are on twitter, word of mouth potential, etc. etc. and I’m of course now adding to that with this post. What I want to explore is how [...]

This is one of my (not at all secret) “secret weapons” in social media use – tell people what you want them to do! You can’t ask people to retweet everything, but an occasional “please retweet” makes an enormous impact in spreading the word.

[...] networks, this list will definitely get your started on the right track. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have been quite influential in [...]

Jeremiah – Curious if you have any additional insight behind something you wrote.

“At some point we can expect a service to appear that will track a tweet from a single source, then track how it is retweeted, then by who (and their number of followers) then to create a numerical value of the velocity of that single original tweet as it cascades through a community.”

This has the potential to be very useful.
Is this personal speculation or are you aware of someone/company actively working on such a service?

[...] media pundits around in the blogosphere, including Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang, who posted Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of Mouth and Shel Israel, who wrote retweeting is the most powerful single aspect of [...]

Does the time of day or night make a difference in the impact of retweets?

[...] Read this excellent article on the impact of doing a simple thing like retweets in viral communication in our businesses and organizati… [...]

[...] The “Re-Tweet” and WOM marketing, from the always-thoughtful Jeremiah Owyang. One reason I re-tweet – I do not assume that all my subscribers are following everyone I follow. It’s a very time-effective way to expose your network to different voices. [...]

[...] Jeremiah has a nice post about the retweet phenomenon in twitter (much like via: in delicious, another convention/function established by the community rather the platform provider). As a result, the most powerful activity within Twitter is to watch the “Retweet” phenomenon. A retweet is when one individual copies a tweet from someone in their network and shares it with their network. It’s perhaps the highest degree of content approval, it means that the content was so valuable and important that they were willing to share it with their network –causing it to spread from one community to the next –retweets are the core essence of the viral aspect of content spreading. [...]

Ken

I’m sure there are buzz monitoring systems already doing that, i’m sure they’ll brief me soon.

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth [...]

[...] Another fellow blogger added an interesting post on Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of MouthHere’s a small excerptEmail Marketing Strategy » Blog Archive » Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of Mouth November 24th, 2008 8:49 am. […] Another fellow blogger placed an observative post today on Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of … [...]

[...] Another fellow blogger added an interesting post on Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of MouthHere’s a small excerptEmail Marketing Strategy » Blog Archive » Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of Mouth November 24th, 2008 8:49 am. […] Another fellow blogger placed an observative post today on Retweet: The Infectious Power of the Word Of … [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth – A rich source of soundbites for selling those Twitter (and other social web) benefits to them upstairs. [...]

[...] dem som rapporterar som inte bara dragits med i uppståndelsen och agerar utifrån det – eller som re-tweetar spekulationer eller tvivelaktiga [...]

[...] friend Jeremiah Owyang, digital media influencer and analyst at Forrester posted a blog entry on Retweet and the power of word of mouth. To [...]

[...] About a week ago, I posted about some effects of retweets, and how businesses can use them here – inspired by Jeremiah’s post – Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth . [...]

[...] and there was no central source to verify. In some cases, conversations in Twitter (and even the retweet) can influence press, and therefore spread information to other locations impacting how emergency [...]

[...] constatações interessantes sobre o tema que caíram na blogosfera foram do Jeremiah Owyang – sobre o poder das “re-twittadas”, como um boca-a-boca ultra-poderoso – e do Tim O’Reilly – sobre o porquê dele amar o brinquedinho [...]

[...] then there is Retweeting for which I couldnt find a good tool, but some interesting insights on the subject. This might just be the piece that emerges as something akin to hyperlinking – more [...]

[...] and there was no central source to verify. In some cases, conversations in Twitter (and even the retweet) can influence press, and therefore spread information to other locations impacting how emergency [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth More like the word of Tweet (tags: twitter marketing analytics socialnetworking viral tweetmarks monitoring socialmedia influence of microblogging retweet smm jeremiah forrester jeremiahowyang wordofmouth wom trust) [...]

[...] of the faster growing trends on Twitter is the Retweet. If someone says something remotely profound or links to something that someone else finds [...]

Thanks.
I have been active on Twitter for a day shy of 3 weeks.During that time I have staged Twitter’s first Post Conceptual Art Performance, and written several blogs on the Twitter experience, including one asking Is It better to follow or be Followed on Twitter, which continues to draw comments.
Through most of this time I have followed you.
I follow fairly eclectically, but do try to follow people who are influencers or who post good links that I follow. These can include people who find good material to ReTweet. Twitter can be quite educational!

Judy Rey Wasserman
On Twitter: judyrey

[...] Retweets are great indication of the originator’s topical influence and the audience’s interest. Recently, after reading a post “Are You Retweetable“, from Todd Sampson (co-founder MyBlogLog), I thought of creating a quick hack, Retweetrank, for ranking twitter users based on the number of retweets. [...]

[...] The Art of ReTweeting: Excellent article on the art and function of retweeting.  Read about the viral nature of the retweet here. [...]

[...] Jeremiah Owyang in Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth: A retweet is when one individual copies a tweet from someone in their network and shares it with [...]

good article. its interesting to read about the credence and power of the retweet. makes total sense.

[...] en bloggpost dyker upp bland övriga bloggkommentarer (jfr vanliga trackbacks) och filosofin bakom re-tweeting tas vidare. Så här motiverar upphovsmannen Dan Zarella sin plugin TweetBack: Beyond simply [...]

[...] people according to how much their tweets are re-tweeted seems to follow the same line of thought: Retweets are great indication of the originator’s topical influence and the audience’s [...]

[...] = Retweet. See @danzarrella’s RT research, @jowyang’s RT post on WoM marketing & RT is the FWD of 2008. Dan recently created Tweetbacks; expect a ‘TB’ in the [...]

[...] What’s a retweet? It’s simply repeating an entry you’ve seen on Twitter by acknowledging its author. It’s not a native action on Twitter, but has been implemented by many applications and has become a standard use of the micro-blog service. It’s a gesture, the highest form of content approval, as the always very instightful Jeremiah puts it. [...]

I was just having this dicussion with a co-worker recently–where we were debating the importance of SEO or re-Tweeting, and it was my belief that re-Tweeting is a much better form of communication.

While it requires good content, and a reliable networking to make it viral-for the end user it is non-invasive and has no CTA. What could be better for a brand?

Thanks for this post and for tweeting about it. I like this so much that I retweeted it. Hey, it works!

LIza

[...] – Its also worth Tweeting a short view. Targeting those people who have already Tweeted, may be prioritisng those with over 200 followers or who have some demonstrable Twitter influence. Never underestimate the power of the Retweet. [...]

[...] (oh, what’s a retweet you ask? it’s the power of your/our voices) [...]

[...] talented designers to chat with, share information, and help out, but by making friends and the power of the retweet, TDC was able to gain exposure, readers and [...]

Interesting blog, i have bookmarked it for future referrence

[...] someone’s Twitter post when you think it is important and you want more people to see it, more about retweets here. My tool retweet radar gathers all those “retweeted” messages and attempts to pull out [...]

[...] and Facebook. Is it really defined by the number of followers a person has? Can it be defined by number of ReTweets? Or does Twitter’s own hand-picking of influentials as recommendations define influence? A [...]

great and informative article. i think i will retweet it!

[...] about this story? I bet you daren’t ask! That’s right, on Twitter – in fact someone retweeted [...]

[...] Repeated requests for retweets [...]

[...] Putting the ‘RT’ in Marketing Posted by Eric on May 21, 2009 Business, Technology In today’s economic climate, marketers are trying to do more with less by making more efficient media buys. The most cost efficient, and often most trusted form of media is word of mouth. Senior Forrester Research Analyst Jeremiah Owyang called word of mouth the holy grail of marketing. [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth (by Jeremiah Owyang) [...]

[...] what do we define as conversation? For starters, consider the retweet ratio: 11,027 retweets vs. 9,445 tweets. Over half of the overall conversation is an echo. In fact, [...]

[...] well as the buzz generated from it. Understanding your reach, the conversation, overall pick-up and redistribution will help you get more tactical about reaching your target audiences via social [...]

[...] as Jeremiah Owyang writes in Web Strategy by Jeremiah, retweeting may be the single most powerful aspect of Twitter.  This is because it is the virtual embodiment of “word of mouth.”  If [...]

interesting post, will come back here, bookmarked your site

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth [...]

[...] en bloggpost dyker upp bland övriga bloggkommentarer (jfr vanliga trackbacks) och filosofin bakom re-tweeting tas vidare. Så här motiverar upphovsmannen Dan Zarella sin plugin TweetBack: Beyond simply [...]

[...] you more credibility and support/endorsement of your ideas — don’t take my word for it, read what Jeremiah Owyang has to say about it, and Shel Israel – RT’s can continue through many levels, so if you’re one of the 1st [...]

[...] those seeking advice on how to retweet and be more RT-worthy, consider Jeremiah Owyang’s “Retweet: The Infections Power of Word of Mouth,” Guy Kawasaki’s [...]

[...] = Retweet. See @danzarrella’s RT research, @jowyang’s RT post on WoM marketing & RT is the FWD of 2008. Dan recently created Tweetbacks; expect a ‘TB’ in the future. PRT [...]

[...] http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/11/23/retweet-the-infectious-power-of-the-word-of-mouth/ [...]

[...] doesn’t show when I’m mentioned on Twitter (a good thing where “retweets” are concerned) so I use Twitter Search on a near-daily basis. I search for the terms [...]

Social marketing is worked great for us, I am with agentbuilderinc.com and we started up http://twitsurance.shoutem.com

A great article. I’m not sure whether companies and organisations have even realised the value, and damage, that retweets can have. What is certain is that they can’t be ignored!

[...] jag ser ett bra inlägg på Twitter händer det ofta att jag retweetar det, dvs agerar slavsändare och sänder det vidare med möjlighet för mina followers att också [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth [...]

[...] Retweet: The Infectious Power of Word-of-Mouth – Web Strategy by Jeremiah – Nov ‘08. [...]

Jeremiah: Thanks for the 'retweet how-to' link and mention of Shel's post. I'll be checking them both out shortly.

As David mentioned, citing other blogs in our posts is easy to do (and often second nature), but finding the best way to share on Twitter can sometimes be more difficult. Many times upon retweeting something I want to add my own comments, but also don't want to confuse it with the message I am relaying on.

I've also found that depending on who is part of your network (local users versus a national audience), retweets can quickly clog up a stream.

However, all that being said, it is amazing to see how viral a message can become with the quick-publishing power we all have in microblogging. It used to be amazing to see how many people would blog and reblog about something, but retweeting has the ability to spread much farther, much faster.

[...] är på digital nivå den plattform som starkast driver word of mouth: systemet med retweets som skickar vidare andras intressanta innehåll till sitt eget nätverk, möjligheten att använda [...]

If you want to buy the best designer cheap handbags,i would like to introduce two famous brand handbags gucci to you.I think there must be one handbag is your favorite. http://www.gucciwell.com

[...] What’s a retweet? It’s simply repeating an entry you’ve seen on Twitter by acknowledging its author. It’s not a native action on Twitter, but has been implemented by many applications and has become a standard use of the micro-blog service. It’s a gesture, the highest form of content approval, as the always very instightful Jeremiah puts it. [...]

[...] Further tips on the Art of the Retweet Bloggingbits Mashable Jeremiah Owyang on the infectious power of the Retweet [...]

[...] and sharing take care of it. If you haven’t realized the power of the retweet, look into it here. Stay minimal when speaking of your product, and go large when creating relationships. Personally, [...]

Insightful post thankyou ! I am new to Twitter and I have found Re-tweeing a fantastic way to segway into another stream of followers. Wow, what a fantastic era for technology and exciting times we live in – I love the fact that there is an undercurrent of technology users that are working underneath the BS to generate the value of real opinions out there! I am hooked to this new way of communicating with other like minded people and I totally love it !

[...] rapporterar som inte bara dragits med i uppståndelsen och agerar utifrån det – eller som re-tweetar spekulationer eller tvivelaktiga [...]

sports shoes
Nike Sport Shoes
Women's Nike Sport Shoes
Men's Nike Sport Shoes

I find when I retweet it is usually followed by a few new followers adding me.. so I try to retweet good content & also hope my good content gets retweeted too. Key point taken from your post is to track & pay attention to the spread of m information.

Great post. Since this post is now a few years old, it is interesting to see how Twitter and similar social networking tools have taken off.

Follow me on twitter and I'll follow you back!:
twitter.com/amplivox

[...] networks, this list will definitely get your started on the right track. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have been quite influential in WOM [...]

Lastactionseo…

Vielen Dank für das freischalten des Kommentars….

Twitter is very great, simple but very strong, I love this tool when promotion my business.

[...] Share and share alike. When you find something that you like, and want to share it with your own network of followers, don’t be selfish and pass it off as your own work, use the ‘RT’ (re-tweet) and acknowledge the originator. This ‘kindness’ will also mean that people will click through to you if someone retweets one of your post … thus you will gain more followers as a result. Read this: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth  [...]