Retweets are Twitter’s version of shout outs. They allow you to show appreciation for others by broadcasting their tweets to your followers. In return, others in your industry may want to share your tweets with their followers – provided your tweets are relevant and interesting. The purpose of this article is to explain the basics of how to retweet and show you how a few simple tweaks can increase the chances of your tweets going viral.

When I first started using Twitter, I made a big – yet common – mistake. I followed only people who followed me. This resulted in a stream full of spam and total silence whenever I posed a question or shared a link.

When I reached about 1,000 followers, I decided to take a proactive approach to Twitter. I began to seek and follow people in my industry – people who care about the same topics I care about. Once this happened, I generated some great opportunities through the social networking platform.

Below are five ways you can develop a targeted following on Twitter:

The quality of your Twitter profile plays a huge role when others decide if they want to follow you. A focused profile can mean the difference between building a large network of targeted followers or failing in your Twitter marketing efforts. This post will show you how to create a Twitter profile that attracts targeted followers.