Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

Does your executive job search brand communications plan include Twitter? If so, do you take advantage of the beauty of a retweet?

If you’re not on Twitter because you don’t think you’ll have time to come up with enough quality tweets, reconsider.

I’m about to explain how you can leverage the value of Twitter with very little time and effort.

If you are on Twitter, what do your tweets look like? Are they mostly about what you had for lunch . . . or what movie you saw last night . . . or how lousy the weather is in your area?

Sprinkling in some of those kinds of tweets is okay, but for the most part, you should focus on reinforcing your brand in tweets that will resonate with your target audience.

If you’re active on Twitter or want to be, and need help creating good tweets, you need a retweet (RT) strategic plan.

The Twitter Help Center describes a retweet:

“A Retweet is a re-posting of a Tweet. Twitter’s Retweet feature helps you and others quickly share that Tweet with all of your followers. You can Retweet your own Tweets or Tweets from someone else.

Sometimes people type “RT” at the beginning of a Tweet to indicate that they are re-posting someone else’s content. This isn’t an official Twitter command or feature, but signifies that they are quoting another person’s Tweet.”

Even if you do nothing else on Twitter, posting relevant retweets can be a powerful way to build brand evangelism, a quality Twitter following, and get on the radar of people you want to rub elbows with.

Tech journalist Daniel Nations wrote about the benefits of retweeting:

“Sharing someone’s post is a way to set yourself apart from people who only follow and comment. A retweet might also result in a return for the favor from an influencer with a heavy following, thereby increasing your exposure on Twitter.

It also introduces valuable information and a new voice to your followers. Retweeting is one of the most effective ways to get the word out about anything worth sharing, while building your social media engagement.”

How To Build Your Retweet Strategy

First, gather up a long list of people to retweet.

Who are these people? Colleagues, industry thought leaders, and CEOs and other top-level executives at your target companies, to name a few. Search for them on Twitter, follow them and retweet them.

Look on Twitter for the companies themselves you’re targeting in your job search. Follow and retweet them.

Break up your long list into various categories to help you prioritize and manage your retweet strategy. One category should be your favorite go-to people (those you can always count on for a good tweet)

Use an app like Hootsuite or PostPlanner (my current favorite) to help you organize and manage your lists and retweets.

How To Actually Do the Retweeting

Check out the Twitter Help Center for all the mechanics of retweeting.

Twitter tweaks functionality almost daily it seems, so, instead of outlining the steps here, it’s best if you go straight to the source.

5 of My Own “Give to Get” Retweet Strategies

1.   Keep most of your retweets professional in nature, and consistent with your brand and ROI.

2. But it’s okay to RT off-topics and humorous tidbits sometimes, too.

3.   Don’t automatically retweet something containing a link without first checking it, to make sure it’s not a bad link and doesn’t lead somewhere you don’t really want to send people.

4.   It’s always nice to include your own brief supportive comment with a re-tweet that’s exceptional. If you’re having a hard time generating conversation on Twitter, retweeting in this way will help.

5.   Use abbreviations sparingly. A jumble of text-speak (or acronyms) can be confounding and doesn’t give a professional impression.

More on Twitter and Executive Job Search

Twitter vs LinkedIn for Executive Job Search Networking

7 Things Successful Executive Job Seekers Know

16 Deadly Executive Job Search Mistakes