Crypto Marketing with Ty Smith
Is It OK to Retweet Yourself? | Ep. 20
About this episode
Ty, TJ, and Kylie tackle a small but real social media etiquette question: is it fine to retweet your own tweets? The conversation splits the issue between personal accounts and brand or influencer accounts, with TJ comparing self-retweets to liking your own photo on Instagram, something people either shrug off or cringe at.
The group lands on a practical framework. Retweeting yourself for professional or brand purposes, especially to catch a more active audience or deliver more impressions for a sponsor, is a legitimate marketing tactic. Timing matters too: TJ suggests 12 to 48 hours is the normal window, while anything past a week starts to feel off, unless you're referencing old content as commentary rather than just reposting it.
They also work through a gray area Ty brings up on the spot: does retweeting your own agency's account count as retweeting yourself? The consensus is that it's more acceptable, since it's just sharing your own product's message on a different platform, which is exactly what a team does when a podcast episode drops.
Key takeaways
- Treat self-retweets differently depending on whether you're posting as a person or as a brand.
- Retweet yourself strategically to reach your audience at a more active time, like reposting a Tuesday tweet on a busy Friday night.
- Stick to a 12 to 48 hour window for self-retweets meant to boost engagement or impressions.
- Avoid retweeting yourself more than a week after the original post unless you're referencing it as new commentary.
- Use self-retweets to extend value for sponsors by getting extra impressions on paid content.
- Retweeting your own agency or brand account is more acceptable than retweeting your personal tweets since it's just cross-posting the same message.
- Don't retweet everything you post. Save it for content that actually performed well or has a clear strategic reason.
Questions this episode answers
Is it okay to retweet your own tweets?
The hosts agree there's no strict rule against it. It comes down to whether you're a person or a brand, and whether you care about how it looks socially. If you're a marketer or influencer, retweeting yourself for exposure is considered a normal, fair strategy.
What's the best time to retweet yourself?
TJ says most self-retweets make sense within 12 to 48 hours of the original post, timed for when more of your audience is active, like a Friday night. Going past a week starts to feel strange to both hosts, though referencing older content (like a prediction that came true) is treated differently since it's framed as new commentary.
Does retweeting a brand account you manage count as retweeting yourself?
Ty raises this about retweeting Coinbound from his personal account. Both TJ and Kylie agree it's more acceptable than retweeting your own personal tweets since it's just sharing your own product or agency's messaging on another platform, similar to how a team retweets a company podcast drop.
Do marketers actually retweet themselves for engagement?
Ty says he does it fairly often on his professional Twitter account because his job is getting impressions, and a retweet can revive a good tweet that didn't hit the first time or boost sponsored content. TJ agrees it's a common tactic, especially for delivering more value to a sponsor or client.
Does a retweet ever perform as well as the original tweet?
Ty says in his experience a retweet never hits as hard as the original tweet did, and TJ agrees it never will. Despite that, both still see it as worth doing strategically to catch a different segment of your audience at a more active time.
Full transcriptShow
Ty Smith0:00
Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Marketing Show. My name is Ty Daniel Smith.
TJ0:07
I'm TJ, Young Dumb Crypto.
Kylie0:08
And I'm Kylie.
Ty Smith0:09
Today we are discussing the age-old question of is it okay to retweet yourself? The age-old question since the beginning of time. The cavemen, it's actually in hieroglyphics of people retweeting themselves. It actually started a couple of wars. I think it was World War I or World War II, one of them was started from a retweet of yourself. But yeah, TJ, do you think it's okay to retweet yourself?
TJ0:23
I mean, okay, sure. If you want to retweet yourself, it's kind of up, I've always on the, it's up to you to kind of figure out who you want to be, how you want to phrase yourself, what type of person you want to be. Is it a, like that was something we had just kind of mentioned, is it a person or is it a brand makes a big difference. To me, it's somewhat like liking your own post on other platforms, like liking your own picture on Instagram. Some people are like, 'Yeah, I thought that was a good picture, that's why I posted it. So, yeah, of course I like my own pictures.' Other people are like...
Ty Smith1:07
I would cringe at that. But that's what we're talking about, the difference between a person doing it and a brand.
TJ1:12
Right. Well, and if I'm a brand, I don't, do you like your own pictures as a brand?
Kylie1:14
But what if you are your brand?
Ty Smith1:17
But yeah, okay. An influencer, for example, I would consider a brand because that's their brand. Right, so they're trying to get exposure. So, I mean, there definitely are times, places, reasons, strategies, just like anything else. It's a time and a place for everything. So there's reasons to do it, but I don't do it all that often, but I'm not saying I've never done it. I probably don't do it more, I know I did it not that long ago, probably, I don't remember when, but sometime in the last month or so.
Ty Smith1:31
I do it relatively frequently. But that's because my account, like my Twitter account, I don't, like it's not connected with friends and family and stuff like that. Everything I post on there is for the purpose of professional growth and keeping in contact with the community, stuff like that. And I'm a marketer, so who's going to blame a marketer for doing whatever is possible to get as many impressions on something as possible?
TJ2:10
Exposure, sure.
Ty Smith2:12
Yeah, so I see it as fine for me. If someone crringes at it, whatever, it's part of my job. And I think most influencers probably, if they don't, they should take that approach because it's a good way to get more organic traffic on something that maybe didn't do well the first time around, or you're posting at a more opportune time, or if it's sponsored content, to get more impressions for that sponsor.
TJ2:28
Exactly. No, that was, so that's where I was going with some of the strategies and the reasons I have heard that people do it, or the kind of why behind some reasoning that it is okay to retweet yourself. Not that it's, I mean, obviously anything's okay. There's no okay or not okay.
Ty Smith2:36
It's a social etiquette question, right?
TJ2:37
Yeah, it's just a matter of why would you do it. And I know some people, like sometimes if you have a really good tweet and you put it out and it got decent engagement but it wasn't at a very active time, and you think, 'Oh, I'm going to retweet this when I know a bunch of people are online and try to get more exposure on it or try to get more engagement on it.' That's a pretty common strategy. Or like you said, if you're doing something for a sponsor or a brand, a lot of people will tweet the original comment out and then come back a day later, a couple of days later, retweet it again, try to get it more exposure so that they can deliver more value for their clients or their customers.
Ty Smith3:23
Now, when would you retweet yourself? Like both, both in what situation, which you kind of already touched on, and like literally how long after the original content goes out would you retweet? Like would you retweet yourself a month after the fact or a day after the fact?
TJ3:32
Yeah, actually, I'm actually more likely to retweet myself way, way after the fact. Like if I...
Ty Smith3:35
Really? See, I haven't done that.
TJ3:36
So like if, so another time you'll see people retweet, with sometimes especially traders and stuff that are making price predictions and they call X, Y, and Z out at this date, this is going to happen, and then they'll go back and...
Ty Smith4:07
That's a little different though, because that's referencing something.
TJ4:09
That's what I'm saying. That's, and that's more when I would retweet, like if I posted something and then three months later it happened, I may do, I haven't done that yet, but I'm not, I'm not against it. I'm not above doing that.
Ty Smith4:16
Yeah, I don't see that as being really like in the same conversation as what we're having because you're just, you're adding the old, like old content to new content, I consider it new content.
TJ4:22
So, but that was just my answer for the when. I'd go way back. But also, I mean, if like we were just touching on with sponsorships, if you wanted it to get more, I'd say wait a day, wait a couple of days. I mean, you don't, usually with Twitter everything's fairly actively relevant in the moment, so usually it's not like a, I feel like it's either within 12 to 48 hours or probably not much at all. I feel like if you get into four, five, six, or maybe one week, but anything over a week, I would think is kind of probably going to be...
Ty Smith5:07
Yeah, I would see that as weird, but I'm, I'm not sure why.
TJ5:09
Yeah, exactly.
Ty Smith5:09
Yeah, I'm not sure why.
TJ5:10
It's, it's, it's just psychology. And it's really just a matter of if you care what other people think. If you don't care what other people think, retweet yourself as much as you want. Who cares? Nobody's going to do anything about it.
Ty Smith5:16
Kylie, do you retweet yourself?
Kylie5:17
Never in my life retweeted myself. That is a strong no. That is a strong no. No, because I wasn't on crypto Twitter and I wasn't doing social marketing for Twitter, so my experience was all the people from high school. So never would I have retweeted myself, even when I'm, all the people that are in my community are just people I went to high school with, you know what I'm saying? But when you're promoting yourself, your brand, other brands, or like you guys were saying, you're referencing, that makes sense. Or hey, if you have a fire tweet and you know that it can do better, retweet yourself. Do you, boo. We support it. Do you, boo. That is the policy of Coinbound.
Ty Smith6:10
Yeah, but like be strategic about it. Don't retweet everything, because I promise not everything was meant to go viral.
TJ6:14
Well, I mean, because more or less basically what you're saying is that you think this was so good that everybody needs to see it, and if you missed it the first time, here it is again.
Ty Smith6:19
In my experience also, the retweet never hits the way the original tweet did.
TJ6:22
No, it never will. But it's like I said, you can use it strategically. If you see, especially if you see one that has hit pretty well and you know there wasn't a lot of people online, getting it back out there when there's a lot, like Friday night, for example, is really active on Twitter, maybe retweeting yourself on a Friday night, something that you did like Tuesday morning that for some reason went really viral, you never know.
Ty Smith6:34
Now, I didn't plan the conversation to go this way, but it's coming up in my mind now. Let's talk about retweeting the content of, like for example, my Twitter account is Ty Daniel Smith. We have Coinbound. It's not only me managing Coinbound, but me retweeting Coinbound is sort of by extension me retweeting myself. Do you see any, anything there? Is it more acceptable or less acceptable to do that?
TJ7:12
I mean, I think...
Ty Smith7:14
Because I retweet like everything from Coinbound.
TJ7:15
Yeah, definitely. Like if it's your own agency, if it's your own product, it's just putting that messaging on a different platform.
Ty Smith7:18
I see that as more acceptable, I think.
TJ7:20
Yeah, it's definitely more acceptable. So like if you have, like for example, I know like if you have a podcast, the podcast drops and then, like for this example, we'll do a, we'll drop this episode on the Coinbound channel, but then we're all going to, we're all going to retweet it.
Ty Smith7:27
Yeah.
TJ7:28
I mean, it's just the same, because we're in it. Because we're in it, yeah. It's just like posting it on our own channel. So yeah, I see that as just sharing, that's how you would share content.
Kylie7:31
Yeah, and let's be real, we're in crypto. We're going to shill ourselves all day long. Come on. Shill life. Yeah, so...
Ty Smith7:37
All right, I guess that's, that's it, unless you guys have anything else to add. No?
TJ7:40
No, that's pretty much it.
Ty Smith7:41
All right. Well, remember to rate, review, and recommend. I almost forgot the three Rs. Rate, review, and recommend the podcast, and...
TJ8:11
And subscribe.
Ty Smith8:11
And subscribe, and smash that like button, and retweet this five times, and then retweet your retweet.
TJ8:15
Yeah, exactly.
Ty Smith8:16
And we'll, we'll retweet you too.
TJ8:17
Yeah, we'll retweet your retweet.
Ty Smith8:18
I wonder how, I wonder how far down that meta-chain we can go. How many retweets of retweets we can go.
TJ8:21
Crypto Twitter can go down, deep down some retweet rabbit holes, that's for sure.
Ty Smith8:24
All right. All right, if you're listening, retweet the tweet of this podcast with a comment. We will retweet that with also a comment, and we'll see how far we can get that to go before one of us gets bored. All right, thanks, guys.
