Are you entering Retweet comps correctly?

Feeling frustrated because you’re not winning any Retweet competitions on Twitter? It could be due to a number of reasons, but the most common is simply that you’re not entering them correctly!

Retweet or Retweet with comment?

When you tap the retweet button under a tweet, you’re given two options. If it’s a RT competition, you should tap Retweet. Don’t choose Quote Tweet unless the promoter has specifically asked you to.

Why? Because when you add a comment, it’s no longer a retweet. It’s now your tweet, with the original tweet quoted below it. Check by tapping to see the original tweet – the retweet button underneath isn’t green. Your quoted tweet will appear on their Notifications, but most brands only check their Mentions, rather than all their notifications!

For my own Twitter giveaway (below), I asked entrants to RT, and answer using a hashtag, At least 10% of people entered incorrectly, by quoting the tweet (instead of retweeting) or missing off the hashtag, so they won’t be eligible to win. To choose my winner I’ll use Tweetdraw to pick a random retweeter, then I will check they used the hashtag, answered the question and are following me.

When a promoter runs a retweet competition, they will be choosing from the people on the list of retweets. They’ll hopefully be using a free tool like Tweetdraw to choose a random winner, or perhaps a special app that they’ve paid for. These apps choose at random from Retweets – they don’t include Quote Tweets. If the promoter doesn’t know these apps and tools exist, they might just click on ‘Retweets’ under the tweet and choose by scrolling through the list.

If you want to win a Retweet competition, ensure your name appears on the list of retweets! When you’ve successfully retweeted, the arrows underneath a tweet will turn green. If you’ve been asked to leave a comment, leave a reply, or tag a friend, tap retweet and then afterwards, tap the speech bubble icon to reply too.

Retweet with a hashtag

What should you do when a promoter asks you to retweet with a hashtag though? Well, that’s not actually possible – because if you add a hashtag to a retweet, it’s now a quoted tweet and won’t show on the main retweets list! So when promoters ask you to do this, we have no idea whether they will choose their random winner by hashtag, or from the retweets.

Most compers will enter by tapping retweet, and then sending a reply with the competition hashtag and any required text/answer.

Or cover both options by doing a Quote Tweet and adding the hashtag (tag the promoter too, to ensure you pop up in their mentions!), then going back and doing a regular retweet too. You need to do them in this order – once you’ve retweeted a post, you can’t then send a quoted tweet!

Sending replies

Having said all this, some Twitter brands don’t choose a winner fairly from retweets at all. They simply choose a reply that they like from their Mentions tab. My advice is to retweet the competition, and always send a friendly reply, even if it’s not requested. I usually tag a friend in my reply, to get Brownie points for spreading the word about the competition!

In 2020 Twitter changed, and when you tap to see retweets you can see a list of regular Retweets and a separate list of Quote Tweets – so although it’s now possible for a promoter to see a list of retweets that added a comment or hashtag, it’s not possible for them to choose at random from those tweets using a tool like Tweetdraw.

Unfortunately, how winners are chosen by most brands on Twitter is still a mystery – so my advice is to ensure you’re noticed by interacting with brands as much as you can, and tweeting original content as well as retweeting comps!

If you want more tips on Twitter comping, check out my ten tips to win more prizes on Twitter, my YouTube Twitter comping guide or leave a comment below to ask a question!

You night also find my blog post The top ten mistakes compers make helpful!