Twitter is still one of the easiest places to use a content curation strategy to grow your network.

You can use replies and retweets to attract the attention of influencers and grow your network.

• find a good tweet
• retweet it with a comment
• reply to it

Retweets

When you Retweet:

• The tweet is visible in your main timeline so you add content to your timeline
• The person you retweet is notified and they might then take action to - browse your timeline, follow you, etc.

Therefore in addition to increasing content, the person receives a notification that you have extended the reach of their post which is a valuable interaction.

The comment in a retweet is a Call to Action

When you retweet with a comment you add slightly more value than if you just hit the retweet button because you have provided a call to action for your followers.

Your comment gives people a reason to read it.

Adding additional hash tags When you retweet

Adding additional hash tags puts your tweet in a different social space than the original, thereby extending your reach and increasing the reach of the original tweet which provides additional value.

Replies

Replies should add value and be useful. Expand on what they have said rather than direct away from it.

Expand on their message by:

• agreeing and complementing what they said
• agreeing and providing a supporting example

You detract with:

• negative comments
• links off-twitter to your own material

Using replies as a team strategy

You can use replies as a strategy for drawing other people’s attention to the tweet.

e.g. if you’re working in a team and want to let someone in your team know that this tweet is useful

If you do that be sure to include a message “Hey @Bob, we should follow up on this, I think we’ll find value in implementing it”

Make sure you do add a message though, otherwise your tweet looks like spam e.g. “@CompanyName”. The influencer just received a notification with no context that mentions “CompanyName”. What would they think?

• Is company name trying to promote itself in my tweet thread?
• Does company name want me to contact them?
• ?

Replies with a message:

• notifies the person, because it is a reply
• adds value to the person because it has context and is positive
• notifies “@Bob” because they were mentioned in the tweet
• the message appears in your “Tweets & Replies” rather than your main timeline

However, you may be better off ‘sharing’ the tweet wth your team.

• On the web site you do this by using “Copy link to tweet” from the “v” menu in the top right of the tweet. And then emailing or messaging it to your team.
• On Android you do this with the sharing icon

When you share you don’t notify the person so your communication is restricted to your team.

Add more value in your social media interactions

By adding more value in your retweets the person you are retweeting will take more notice therefore it is a good strategy to use prior to engaging with influencers. This can also encourage organic interaction with the influencer so that they follow you and retweet your material to their followers which increases your reach.