One of the keys to any social network is to be social. We all hope that people will interact with us and – fingers crossed – share our message. On Twitter, a goal of most brands and individuals is to have our followers retweet (or share) our tweets with their followers.

Yet some of the things you’re doing may actually be preventing retweets.

5 Ways to Prevent Retweets on Twitter

1. Have excessive typos People may not share (or even understand) your updates if they contain typos. While occasionally a typo will occur, take the extra few seconds to proofread your tweets.
2. Get political If you are aggressively or polarizingly political, people may not share even your more benign tweets. I mean the ones that have nothing to do with politics – people likely still won’t share them. If you’re known in your community for being extremely (insert word here), people may not share anything you say for fear of being branded the same.
3. Use 140 characters (or more) Often when you auto post from Facebook or other social media platforms, your tweet may run a bit longer than 140 characters. People will see no point in retweeting you if they can’t share the full message and/or they have to do excessive editing to share your tweet. If you want to increase your shares, make sure to consider your character count – especially if you auto post to Twitter from other platforms.
4. Be all promotional, all the time If every single tweet says “Read my blog post! Read my blog post!“, chances are, no one is going to care. Social media is not magic. There are tons of blogs out there – why should they read yours (even though you may be very wise and insightful). Use Twitter as a place not just to promote your blog posts, but to highlight your knowledge and expertise in 140 characters or less.
5. Know your target market’s culture Are you marketing products to sell to professionals? It’s likely not a great idea to send profanity-laced jokes on Twitter. Trying to sell a cutting edge new product to a niche counter culture? Don’t send the world’s most boring tweets. You need to talk to your customers in the way they’re most likely to notice, respond to, and share your message.

Do you have any other “retweet killers” you regularly see? We’d love to hear what means you won’t retweet someone.