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How frequently you should post on Twitter

How Frequently Should You Post On Twitter?

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to this. There is no magic number that is the “right” amount for everyone. In truth, it depends on your capacity and the content you have to share as well as the tools you use and the support you have.

Consistency rules

More important than how frequently you post is how consistently you post. Many people send a burst of tweets or retweets and then disappear for a significant period of time, leaving big gaps between their bursts of activity.

The problem with doing this is that people in your target audiences probably never get to see your content. Everything moves so quickly on Twitter that frequency is essential to gaining traction. As an expertise-based personal brand, you should aim to tweet at least once or twice a day and more often if possible. Definitely more often if you have valuable content that you want to share.

Spread your messages out

Spread your messages throughout the day so people in your audiences who use Twitter at different times or are in different time zones have a better chance of seeing your messages.

Remember that people are using Twitter on mobile devices as well as their desktop computers or laptops. They are also using it both at work and at home. This means that they often access their Twitter feed when they have downtime such as on a commute. This generally means that tweeting between 8am to 10am and 6pm to 9pm may actually increase engagement.

Use a social media scheduling tool

Chances are you either work alone or have only a small team to support you. You probably also have only a few hours a week to devote to social media. One way to make that work effectively is scheduling tweets in advance. This is a must if you are going to use Twitter effectively (or any social media channel for that matter).

To do this, you need a social media scheduling tool to help you to publish, monitor and manage your social media networks from one place. These tools make it easier for you to share and schedule content and respond to comments.

Social media scheduling tools also make it easier for small teams to work effectively. So if you do work with a team or have an assistant to help you, you will find this invaluable. One word of caution though: scheduling your content using one of these tools will save you and your team time and energy but only use the tool to automate content. Do not use any tools to automate engagement. Engagement should be done in real-time and in-person.

Finally, if you are sharing content, you should have several variations of tweet to share that content and use them over time, measuring what type of message and which hashtags produce the best engagement. This takes effort and most speakers need the additional support of a PA to do this.

Below are links to a number of popular social media scheduling tools.

Social media scheduling tools

There are many social media scheduling tools available. This list is not exhaustive but rather represents a list of the options that I’ve found work best for solo practitioners, especially speakers, consultants and coaches and those with very small teams. Each tool focuses on different features and approaches core tasks in different ways. You may find yourself trying several before you find one that works well for you.

So, to help I have also included links to some of the current articles that evaluate several tools at once. Some of these articles appear on the blogs of the companies behind some of the tools and, naturally, a degree of bias is present. I recommend you do your own research.

You still need to engage

Even when you use a social media scheduling tool, you will still need to check in on Twitter using Tweetdeck or directly on the platform. This is to answer questions, respond to messages and make, or reply to, comments and retweet, like and share other people’s tweets. The more regularly you check in, the quicker you will be able to respond. And the quicker you respond, the faster you will build trust and your followers.

Further reading

8 top social media scheduling tools to save time in 2019 by Sprout Social

13 Of the Best Social Media Posting and Scheduling Tools by Influencer Marketing Hub

Top 10 Social Media Management Tools by eClincher

The 25 Top Social Media Management Tools for Businesses of All Sizes by Buffer

Top 10 Social Media Scheduling Tools that Should Be on Your Radar for 2019 by SocialReport