The first thing that attracted me to JustRetweet was the name. I love simplicity and that's exactly what the site offers – an easy way to find stuff you want to share and retweet it with one click. I have been using the site as an antidote to my growing Triberr fatigue and so far, I like it a lot.
The JustRetweet interface isn't fancy but it works. Everything you need to know about how the site works is on the rules page.
Visit the home page to follow the three simple steps to joining the site.
1. Authorize the site with Twitter – you get 100 credits to get you started.
2. Write a tweet you want others to share – use your credits to pay them for sharing.
3. Retweet others' messages and earn credits in return.
Getting Started with JustRetweet
JustRetweet has its own Twitter-based economy. You gain credits for sharing others' stuff and you give credits so they will share yours. You don't have to belong to any particular group and you only share what you want to share.
Since part of the purpose is sharing your content, then it's best to get started by filling in your profile. There's a settings tab which takes you to a section with several sub-tabs. The general tab has your email, gender, country and interests. The Twitter tab shows whether your profile is active, how many credits you offer for people who follow you (I have mine set at 2) and how many users have followed you so far.
The Retweet tab in your profile is where you set up the tweets you want others to retweet and say how many credits you are willing to spend. You can specify that retweeters have a minimum number of followers before seeing this opportunity.
The website tab allows you to add your sites (or any others you want to promote) so that people can browse them for credit. You need a title, URL, description, credits per view, and total credit allocation. And in the blogs tab, you add your blog feed and set similar options so that your posts are automatically pulled into the site for people to share if they want to.
How to Earn Credits with JustRetweet
Once you have spent your initial credit allocation on JustRetweet (and it goes pretty quickly at 5 credits or more a tweet), then you need to keep your credits topped up by earning. You can earn credits by:
- following other users (usually between 2 and 10 credits, though sometimes more).
- browsing a site (you have to stay for a few seconds)
- sending a tweet (varying amounts, with some offering 25 credits or more)
- referring people to the site (25 credits)
When logged in, your credits show up immediately in the big blue box on your dashboard. The menu also includes tabs for checking out people who want you to follow them for credit, retweets (it's called the Retweet Exchange), websites and blogs.
Also on the home page are the most recent tweets available for retweeting. With these you can skip the tweets that don't interest you, retweet immediately or retweet later so you don't flood your stream. I clicked on post later, got the credits and watched my account to see when the tweet appeared.
Once you have been through the list, you can refresh and see more tweets you can choose from. I always check the posts before retweeting, but for bloggers I know and trust, I could just retweet – good deed done for the day for those bloggers and great content shared.
Watch a video showing how to use JustRetweet
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Other JustRetweet Features
On the JustRetweet home page, there's also a credit history tab which shows the credits you have allocated and earned, which essentially is a snapshot of your activity on the site. Interestingly, you can also see who has viewed your site, retweeted your stuff or followed you, potentially helping to build community.
You can also buy credits and ad spots – there are several of different types on the homepage and site wide – at varying prices. The least expensive of these is a 1 day VIP placement plus 200 credits for $5, which is a pretty good deal.
My JustRetweet Verdict and Wishlist
So far, the site isn't very busy and it addresses some of the issues that have troubled me in the past. With JustRetweet:
- I don't get any hassle from people who feel their stuff isn't being shared enough
- I don't get any hassle from people who have issues with the amount of content some people produce
- I don't get overwhelmed with long lists of stuff that need to be tweeted; in fact, if I'm busy, I only need to look at the handful of tweets on the home page.
There are still a couple of things that would make it better for me. Now that there's tweet scheduling, it would be nice to see the tweets I have scheduled somewhere. I'd also like to be able to see what's happening with my blog content. At the moment, posts are appearing in the blog tab, but there's no evidence that these have been tweeted. In contrast, when I input a tweet manually, there are always a couple of people who tweet it. I'd love to see at least the date of the tweets for retweeting so I know if I'm tweeting old stuff or new. Finally, I'm not sure what happens with the people I follow on the site – and whether this translates to also following them on Twitter – that could be clearer.
Overall, though, I like the feeling of being in control of the retweeting and I love that I've found some new people's stuff to share. I am looking forward to seeing more new features as they come on stream on JustRetweet.