Retweeting can be a tricky subject; getting other people to repeat something isn’t at all the easiest thing to do. Dan Zarrella shared some valuable insights on retweets at PubCon, however, and these tips should help marketers spread their messages a little further.

In an interview with Mike McDonald, Zarella, who’s a social media and viral marketing scientist, started by giving retweets a strong endorsement. He called them his “favorite thing to talk about probably because they’re sort of this very elegant viral mechanism.”

As for Zarrella’s specific bits of advice, sometimes simplicity works best. Just asking for a retweet – try nothing more than “please retweet” – will generate results. Also, it’s a good idea not to get too chatty; Zarrella tries to keep messages he wants retweeted under 100 characters.

Then here are a few more ideas. First, links are perfectly acceptable in retweets. They’re quite common, even, appearing in around 60 or 70 percent of them. Next, Zarrella noted, “The words ‘new blog post’ tend to be retweeted a ton.”

Finally, in terms of timing, try to aim for a little later in the day (perhaps around 4 PM EST), and also later in the workweek (think Thursday and Friday).