How to retweet and still sound like a human

Don’t just pass along a post or a link; enhance it with your own insights

Imitation may be the best form of flattery—or it can be a sign of laziness.

I’ve written before about why it’s important to retweet other people’s posts on Twitter. Not only does it give credit where credit is due, it helps show you’re not a robot or RSS feed and that you’re reading what others are tweeting.

Yet the funny thing is that the way many people retweet posts makes them sound like “bots.” It’s not unusual for 20 people to retweet the same story without making a single change or adding anything new to the conversation. Granted, it may be an important story, but it can make you feel like you’re caught in an echo chamber, especially if you’re following a specific topic or hashtag on TweetDeck.

Now don’t get me wrong. Retweeting is an important function of Twitter, because it shows others that you think what they’ve said is interesting and worth sharing.

So the question is: What can you do to make your retweets more interesting and add to the conversation? Here are some thoughts: