Reblogged Vs. Retweet: A Case for the Former

According to Jeff Jarvis, a famous blogger, links are currency. “Links grant authority. Links build branding. Links equal value.” He wrote this almost 7 years ago. Since then, retweeting and later reblogging have become popular and most convenient ways of quoting others online. However, I strongly believe that reblogging adds more value and brings more credibility to you and your blog than retweeting. The impact of reblogging is usually more profound and long-lasting.

Some of our users may be familiar with our experiment with the ‘Reblog’ button; Tumblr facilitates reblogging and since 2010 WordPress has had an option to ‘Reblog this post’. Reblogging means to repost the content of another user’s post in our own blog post by adding our own comments; reblogging plays a double role: of social bookmarking and user commentary. That is how we build or expand a (meaningful) conversation.

And then there is an ever more popular retweet option on Twitter, which enables us to quickly share a tweet with all of our followers. However, Twitter has its limitations; tweets can only be 140 characters long. This prevents an (effective) expression of our thoughts about the content of the tweet we retweeted. At the end of the day, tweets are like sound bites: short, attention seeking and usually with a very short-term effect. Let’s not forget that Twitter resembles a 24-hour news program. Rarely anyone follows a Twitter thread 24/7, hence your retweets are going to be missed by many. According to 2010 research by Sysomos (they examined 1.2 billion tweets), more than 90 per cent of all retweets happen within the first hour of the original tweet being published. This means that if a tweet is not retweeted in the first hour, it is very likely that it will not be retweeted.

Retweeting may be more convenient, in many cases even a more spontaneous act of letting our followers know what they should read, listen to or watch on the Internet. It is a fast way of sending them to a specific link. A retweet option lacks an opportunity to expand on the link more thoroughly. And here’s where reblogging steps in.

Reblogging isn’t just a potent means of secondary content promotion, it makes quoting others easier and consequently we can expand on the reblogged blog post and continue/build the conversation. Our arguments aren’t lost by a “sound bite” and we can take time to argue our case. This is how we make ourselves more credible, no matter the topic or the nature of our blog. This means a higher added value and that is why I believe the effect of reblogging is much bigger and more profound than the effect of retweeting (but a combination of both is even better). And let’s not forget that critical thinking with developed arguments is beneficial to us all. Indeed, the humanity doesn’t evolve through sound bites.

What do you think? Do you agree with me? Disagree? What are your experiences with reblogging? Share your experience with us.