Twitter offers a great platform for small businesses, individuals and even causes to get their messages out to a large audience in 140 characters or less. The key to making a splash on Twitter is getting your message retweeted by others. Here are five easy ways to get your tweets retweeted.

Include a link.

Across the board, studies indicate that including a url for others to share is a surefire way to earn a retweet. It’s also a great way to send traffic to your site or blog.

Keep your writing short and snappy.

No matter the forum, good writing yields good results, even at 140 characters. Keep your tweets short and to the point, and leave a few characters for those who are retweeting to add in their own two cense.

Say the magic word!

Asking others to Please retweet, or Plz RT as often is the case, is usually the key to success. Other highly retweetable words include: you, Twitter, post, blog, free, great and help.

Punctuation matters.

In the Science of Retweets on Twitter, Brian Solis explains that some punctuation shows up in retweets more than others, specifically colons and periods. The semicolon on the other hand, is considered a retweet killer of sorts, with a very low rate of retweeting.

Proofread your tweets before they go live.

Others are less likely to retweet what you’ve written if it’s sloppily done or has an obvious error. Read your tweet out loud to make sure that it makes sense, and test your links to ensure that they are functioning correctly and that they go to the proper webpage.