Twitter recently made a change to their Retweeting function that can be great, and awful, depending on your perspective. Hubspot has an in-depth article that covers the pros and cons of the new Retweet with Comment function that replaced Twitter’s Quote Tweet. I suggest you read that article, since they do a really good job of explaining the hows and whys of the new feature.
I don’t like it.
In theory the new feature gives us more characters of space in which to add a comment about the Tweet you’re resharing. In practice, it removes my ability to use the original, old-style RT functionality, which is my preferred method of resharing.
Reasons why I prefer the “old” RT style:
- It works on all apps, interfaces and functions (including embeds). The new Retweet with Comment still breaks in embeds, and in viewing while on apps like Hootsuite.
- Retweets and interactions on my RT reshare are tracked in Twitter Analytics.
- Retweets of my comment will actually show my comment and the relevant portion of the shared Tweet when retweeted.
- RT retweets that have twitpic photos will add the photo to your “Photos & Videos” section on your profile.
For now, if I want to continue using RT as my method to reshare Tweets, I’ll have to do it in Hootsuite. Sprout Social just announced that they are rolling out Retweet with Comments, and TweetDeck already integrated the function. For those of you who don’t have a HootSuite account, HubSpot gives step-by-step instructions on how to construct an RT manually.
How do you like Retweet with Comment so far?
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