Getting Retweeted when Launching a Social Media Blog

I launched thesocialmind.com yesterday.

Not a huge launch, not even a medium launch.

It was a one Tweet Launch.

Blog launch tweet

Resulting from the one tweet came many retweets from.:

The retweets resulted in over 500 people viewing the blog on the first day, which is nice. But numbers are not what I am after here. I want to attract people who are focussed on social media marketing.

The specific objective for the blog is to help me write the Social media book I am currently writing. Success being defined by the publication of a suitably high quality book on aspects of social media marketing, not on the traffic to the blog.

Being able to have this many people retweet my launch tweet helps in the objective by sharing the message with other people who are interested in the niche.

How does this help you?

It highlights the need of having a trusted and known presence within social media, specifically twitter. The ability of being able to call on the help of the people who retweeted me does not mean I have to rely on other methods to get my message out.

I would advise you to folllow all the people in this list as they have demonstrated their willingness to help people with a retweet.

No money was exchanged.

Apart from a couple of friends, no retweet was asked for and no reward was given. These retweets were given simply on the desire on the tweeters to tweet.

And that is one of the most powerful and scary things about social media. There is no guarantee. I cannot say to a client, “sure I can deliver a 1,000 retweets”. Because at the end of the day it is up to the tweeter to pass the message on.

If the message is rubbish, if it’s doesn’t inspire, if it doesn’t excite it dies.

Sure it helps if the original tweeter is uber popular like @problogger

But, the quality of the message is crucial and if your followers don’t like, they wont retweet.

Maybe this is why traditional PR companies are still struggling with social media?

There is no absolute control, there is no guarantee.

You must build:

A following
A reputation
A brand
An ethos

More on those in future posts

Respect the niche you are targetting. My followers are interested in social media marketing and so when I show them stuff that is interesting within the niche it helps when wanting a retweet.

Likewise, when the people I am following tweets stuff in the niche that I find interesting, I will retweet.

A question:

Do you retweet because of the person or the content?

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 blogbrevity November 12, 2009 at 4:07 am: I think content is what gets you followed. Providing consistently good content is what gets you retweeted.
2 Rhys November 12, 2009 at 4:20 am: Generally I retweet because of the content. I don’t blind retweet people (had to double check though, thought I retweeted your blog launch, oh well), instead retweet if I like something.

However, I do find I’m retweeting 5 or 6 people more often than some, so I guess they are just great at delivering content, not a concious “I must retweet this person!”
3 Dean November 12, 2009 at 4:46 am: I will retweet mainly retweet based on content, the actual source of the content does influence me slightly but overall it is the content.
4 Guillermo November 12, 2009 at 7:21 am: Content! No doubts!
5 Virginia November 12, 2009 at 11:48 am: I only retweet when the content is interesting an I think it can be interesting for other people. Thing is that you end up retweeting the same people because they tend to deliver interesting news more often (similar to what Rhys says).
6 Internet Strategist @GrowMap November 12, 2009 at 12:02 pm: The number of retweets your launch received is exceptional and an obvious indication of the depth and breadth of those who appreciate your talents.

Getting Retweeted when Launching a Social Media Blog

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