The ReTweet has become a staple of the Twitterverse. It’s highly common to see the infamous “RT” in all caps followed by another Twitterer’s Tweet. It’s a way of both giving credit to a person and passing along the same information they posted on Twitter.

False Impressions of Attention and Activity
The RT, however, seems to get misused about as much as anything on Twitter. What I have observed is that some people spend a majority of their time on Twitter just ReTweeting people. It gives the impression of attention and activity, and for these folks, that seems to be all they want from Twitter. There are enough Twitter tools available today that someone can turn their Twitter on auto-pilot and make it look like they’re much more active than they really are. I saw a person recently who had 24 Tweets a day, on the hour every hour. Clearly these were automatically generated, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the people following this guy think about him if they’re even paying attention anymore.

Interaction Verses Activity
It seems to me that the people who RT too much are not as interested in interaction as much as activity. The conclusion, then, is that they are too busy for the interactions or too lazy to take the time to interact with people. The flawed thinking in both cases is that activity doesn’t mean success. If you’re guilty of over ReTweeting, the people who are paying attention to you will notice that you don’t seem to listen too much, but you sure do a lot of talking. Think of RT’s as a strategic way to pass along good information but don’t fall into the seductive trap of easy Twitter activity. One good conversation in Twitter is worth more than a week of sterile activity.

Don’t neglect ReTweeting. It’s a valuable addition to the way you use Twitter. Just don’t do it so much that you’re not actually talking to anyone in the process.

By the way, don’t ReTweet a compliment. That’s bad form as well. Turn a compliment into a conversation by asking a question or commenting back to your fan.

Last week I put a presentation together for a group about getting started on Twitter. You can check it out below. It includes the “5 Kinds of People to Avoid In Twitter” list that I blogged about several months ago which, incidentally, happens to hold the record for the most comment I’ve ever received on a single post. Also included are a bit about proper Twittequette, and five other questions to answer on Twitter besides the infamous “what are you doing?” question.

Back in April I wrote a post that turned out to be the most commented blog post I’ve ever written. It was about five kinds of people I identified on Twitter that I want to avoid turning into. I also want to encourage other people not to fall into one of these five categories.

A few weeks ago Nathan and I talked about this on an episode of The New Mediology podcast. You can listen there online or check it out on iTunes.

If you want a good laugh (in a sad but true kind of way) check out TweetingToHard.com. You’ll find a few of the five kinds of people to avoid on Twitter there.