If you use Twitter, you no doubt have seen the many RTs that roll through the stream. These are sent by those who really feel that the original Tweet has value to be shared and serves as a form of social acceptance for the content of any given Tweet.
Have you ever wondered how effective these RTs are?
I can tell you that they definitely drive traffic to the host site of the link contained within them, so these really are powerful and effective.
But why take my word?
Below are 4 tools you can try for yourself and measure the results.
Tweet Reach uses an interesting metric to produce it’s results. It looks at how many readers could possibly see this Retweet based on the persons that actually Retweeted it and the number of followers shared among them.
As an example, I retweeted a post by my friend @MikeCJ (he’ll get the bill later) on “Investing In Your Own Business“. Have a look at the results below.
This Retweet was exposed to 3,871 people by just 2 others.
Think of the true impact when your post is retweeted by 10 or 20 others. This could possibly expose your content to tens of thousands of Twitter users. Powerful stuff and lots of exposure which drives traffic to your site.
You can use this tool to freely analyze your last 50 Tweets. There is also a paid report available for $20 that covers all of your tweets.
Retweet Rank is a nice site that provides information on how often you have been retweeted by others. It then assigns a numeric value to your profile. This is also a nice place to review the RTs and see who some of the people were who did the retweet, something that can sometimes get lost in your stream. I like this feature as it allows me to return the favor or visit the person’s site and establish contact. You can meet lots of other bloggers and expand your network in this manner.
This tool also shows your most recent Tweets and suggests others that you may want to check the stats on. Interested in how you measure up against the competition? This will provide the answer.
Check this out, it is extremely easy to use.
Daily RT allows you to see what is going on with the 50 most retweeted accounts on Twitter. You can also check on your competitors, find out what they are Tweeting about and peek their stats.
This site also shows you the most RTed during the past hour, 24 hours, 7 days and all-time. Lots of valuable information here, particularly for businesses looking to stay on top of the industry happenings.
Click the “Profiles” tab and enter your profile name. There is also an interesting “Trends” tab.
This site is packed with info, take it for a test drive here.
Retweetist is another site that allows you to see your most recent retweets and who retweeted the content link. Enter a profile name or the URL and a fairly robust list of retweets is returned, some of which you’ve likely never seen.
Again, this is a nice way to check on competitors and to expand your network by finding out who retweeted your original Tweet. Go visit some of those kind individuals and say thank you for supporting your efforts.
Wrap up
There are other tools designed to generate reports and provide data on your retweets, but I will not cover them all here. 
The 4 above are all pretty nice, if you have another that you are using and prefer, please list it in the comments below.
Do you track retweets to see what the impact is or is this something you have not given much attention to?
I must admit, I only check on these occasionally, but plan to increase my usage.
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Jimi Jones Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Glad you found them useful, Kevin. They provide a wealth of data and the potential reach of the RT is an eye-opener.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..Measuring the Power of the ReTweet =-.
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