The Twitter Retweet to Tweet Ratio for Business is >=3:1

If you’re using Twitter for business, I’d recommend your Twitter ratio of shared tweets/retweets to your own tweets should be at least 3:1.

That is:

You should tweet about, retweet, or promote other people’s content, ideas, and messages at least three times as often as you tweet about your own content, ideas, & messages.

Related Post–Twitter Retweets: How Do I Retweet Other People’s Tweets?
The Twitter Retweet to Tweet ratio equation looks like this:

Retweet to Tweet ratio >= Other people’s tweets, content and message/Your tweets, content, & message

In business where you’re trying to promote a conversation to keep your target audience interested, the ideal ratio for a specific handle would be:

Retweet to Tweet ratio >= 3:1

This ratio promotes other’s content above your own. Here’s my reasoning behind this recommendations.

• Nobody likes people who only talk about themselves – It breaks up the monotony of posting the same tweets about your blog posts or URLs over and over again.
• Your twitter account will function as both a curation account and a business promotion account – If your account is 100% oriented towards your ideas and business, people are more likely to get bored and stop following you. Other people’s content and messages provide variety and save your followers the trouble of finding similar non-competitive content on their own.
• It builds credibility in your subject matter expertise – When you spotlight similar content in your timeline, you establish yourself as a source for your specific subject mater expertise and show others that you’re keeping up with the field.
• It associates your business with other expert Twitter users – If you send out modified tweets (MT), you can add comments to the original tweet, allowing you to extend and add your expertise to other people’s content, associating your Twitter handle with the original user’s handle.
• It allows you to gain attention from other thought leaders in your field – When other similar Twitter users see that you’re promoting their tweets and content, they will be more likely to either follow you back or retweet your content. At the very least, you may get mentioned in the originating users’ thank you tweets.
• It promotes conversation with the original Tweeter or other Twitter users – Spotlighting, retweeting, and commenting on other people’s content will help spur conversations where you can make contacts with your customers or similar businesses.
• It fills out your content – It’s hard to come up good original content to provide for an active Twitter feed. By retweeting similar content from trusted, relevant experts in your field, you can keep your timeline fresh and provide a wider view of the field.

If you’re looking to promote a business , keep in mind that Twitter is still social media. You’re looking for a conversation to keep your users and your specific community involved and watching your timeline. And the best way to do that is by sharing other people’s content through retweets.

Most Twitter experts recommend a Retweet to Tweet ratio of at least 3:1 and I’ve even seen some people recommend a ratio as high as 15:1 (which is great for curation accounts but not so good for business accounts, where you’re still trying to generate interest in a particular product, service, or personality). IMHO, you can achieve good results if you use a 3:1 ratio (75% retweets) to help generate interest in your twitter feed and spotlight your own content.