As Twitter Bulletin reported Friday, Twitter has begun selecting people to test the new retweet functionality. The new add-on to the site now allows users to retweet with even more ease. This update has been implemented through a number of intricate changes, such as being able to see how many people have retweeted a certain tweet at-a-glance.

Below is a step-by-step visual guide on how to tell if you have been chosen the beta, and what to do once you are:

1. Upon logging into Twitter, there should be a box signaling your inclusion in the Retweet beta, like this:

If this does not appear and the homepage loads as usual your account has not been chosen for the beta, yet.

2. Once the above has been established, it’s time to get retweeting! First up, look out for statuses with this icon:
What this icon represents is that an update has been successfully retweeted, thus removing the need to write ‘RT @’ at the beginning of an update.

3. To retweet another users message, simply hover over the desired tweet. A link at the bottom right will appear showing the new retweet option. Upon clicking the link, a hover box will appear to confirm if this is the tweet that you wish to be retweeted. The retweeted update will then appear in your timeline for others to share. If other people have chosen to retweet the update, it will then state that you retweeted it originally, and how many others have too.

5. There is now a ‘Retweets’ link in your sidebar. Once clicked, a page appears with three tabs- Retweets by Others, Retweets by You and Tweets by you, Retweeted.

Retweets by Others shows a timeline of the people you are following’s retweets, while Retweets by You show your own, and Tweets by You, Retweeted is a record of what people have retweeted, originally written by you.

6. Another new feature is selecting who to view retweets from. Next to the SMS option on the individual’s Twitter, there is now a small button, which allows you to switch off that individual’s retweets if they are uninteresting etc to you. You will still see their other updates though.

At first, the new changes to the way updates can be retweeted may seem small but actually in practice make a lot of difference. For instance, not needing to type out ‘RT @’ saves precious characters. The changes also enable users to judge much more effectively how far word is being spread about a certain topic they have tweeted.

Currently, the new retweet function will not display correctly (if at all) in third party Twitter client timelines.

Be sure to tell us what you think about the changes in the comments.