Retweeting is when a Twitter user clicks a link to add someone else’s tweet to their own Twitter stream. (A tweet is a post on Twitter; see our blog post “Twitter: Tips for Concise and Professional-Sounding Tweets” for more information.)

Retweeting is a way of telling your own Twitter followers, “This tweet is worthwhile.” The “RT” letters at the start of the following Twitter post are a signal that Mary Cullen (M_Cullen) retweeted  (RTed) the following post by Jason Fried (jasonfried):

RT @jasonfried: Jargon is insecurity.

At Write It Well, we’re big fans of plain English over jargon. Jargon in business writing can be a sign of insecurity, or a way to overinflate a simple message to make it look more substantial.

We also admire concise writing. If M_Cullen hadn’t RTed jasonfried’s tweet, we would have missed this pithy, well-phrased statement.

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Later this month, Write It Well will post a free PDF with resources and further suggestions about how to get started if you’re interested in using Twitter for your business, but aren’t sure what kind of tweets you’d like to post.