As a prolific tweeter, one of the questions I’m often asking myself is, “How often should I be tweeting?” And although I continue to tweet from multiple accounts both professionally and personally, I haven’t come to a perfect conclusion as yet. Is the right answer once a day? Once an hour, on the hour? Multiple times an hour? And what about retweets and modified retweets- how do they fit into that mix? And replies? Is there a standard best practice for tweet frequency, a “sweet spot” for Twitter success?
According to KISSmetrics‘ data below (a handy little infographic I found on Pinterest that covers Twitter and Facebook frequency and timing), Twitter users who tweet between 1 and 4 times per hour are more likely to get click throughs to their tweeted content. While that guideline may be sound, I’d caution against taking it as an absolute “best practice” (not ever tweet is effective even if you’re abiding by the recommended frequency). In looking at when to tweet, KISSmetrics recommends mid-week and weekends either at noon or 6 p.m. as the best days and times (again based on click through rates). For amplification, Kissmetric recommends tweeting around 5 pm when the likelihood of retweets is highest.
Ultimately, whether tweeting for personal or professional use, your tweets will arguably be their most effective not based upon frequency but upon value to your followers. Rather than ask how frequently you should be tweeting at your followers, ask what kinds of information you’re sharing with and engaging with them around- either by tweeting, replying, or retweeting others’ content.
With any form of writing, the best and most effective pieces of communication are crafted with a clear and true understanding of the intended audience. Why should Twitter be treated any different? While a single tweet may only be 140 characters, it is still a form of writing and the maxim for “knowing your audience” is just as applicable. Knowing what kind of content is valuable to your audience is not only necessary for your desired impact, but I would argue is also the key to understanding how frequently your audience wants to hear from you. Moreover, it’s understanding when they want to hear from you.
If your social media strategy is to send out tweets that could have been written by a robot and link to a press release, you might want to rethink your strategy. If you’re tweeting at your followers far more than you are replying or even retweeting, then you might want to review your engagement priorities. And if you view the number of Twitter followers as indicative of your success on the platform, you might want to revisit your key performance indicators. In fact, you might even want to ask if Twitter is for you.
Agree? Disagree? Tweet with me: @NicKnowsMKTG.
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