I’m a local small business, so how much should I be tweeting? This is a common question that I get asked all the time. To answer it, I think it is important to keep in mind what it’s like to be an actual user on Twitter. Reading tweets often moves fast, so a user simply can’t read it all. Most users just try to absorb a few bits of it every here and there, which is precisely the beauty of the social network.
As a marketing, your own tweet frequency will play off of a similar mindset. Your followers will not be reading everything that you Tweet, in fact, they won’t read the majority of what you tweet. For this reason, and in order to create and keep a consistent presence on Twitter, the answer to the question is very likely … more than you think.
Taco Bell has this new breakfast sandwich. I know this because their commercials play constantly on my TV and laptop. Like seriously, I’m sometimes a #BreakfastDefector because of them.
Every time these commercials air, Taco Bell is flirting with the fine art of frequency. How often is too often to share with your audience?
Social media marketing poses this same dilemma. You want to connect with your followers without driving them away. You want to aim for the perfect balance of sharing and listening. But you don’t want to be annoying, right?
Belief: You think there’s no time to tweet.
Running a local business doesn’t often leave too much free time to tweet very often. In our social media workshops, we generally advise people that they cannot tweet too much, and for most local businesses just starting out with Twitter, that is almost always completely correct. Most local businesses that are using Twitter suffer from not tweeting enough, and I rarely see any of them tweeting too much.
The most important thing to keep in mind, when you are evaluating how much to tweet, is what you are sharing. If you aren’t doing anything more than just pumping out links and advertising, then you definitely can tweet too much. This “push strategy” on Twitter isn’t always completely wrong, but it also isn’t great, and you will hit your “annoying” threshold pretty quickly.
However, if you are tweeting a nice balance of shared links, retweets, and conversations with others then you really have no limits, as 20+ tweets per day will only aid to your online exposure. Mixing these things with a few mentions of your products and services is a good place to start, you just want to make sure not to spend too much time talking about yourself. Twitter is meant to be a 2-way street.
Below, is a quick gauge that you can use to determine just how much you should be tweeting as a local business.
Getting Started
With more than 500 million tweets sent each day, there’s really not much attention to spare for any individual tweet. In fact, recent studies have shown that a tweet is only really ‘current’ for 18 minutes. You read that right, that’s how long your tweet gets attention, on average. So what’s the best time of day to send that tweet in order to squeeze the maximum amount of views and engagement out of those 18 minutes?
For a new Twitter user, I would recommend between 4 and 6 tweets per day. Four tweets is really a minimum, and for a beginner, it is often more than they can handle. Work your way to this level, and then evaluate how you can improve. Don’t just tweet to be tweeting, spend your tweets wisely and share valuable content.
Ramping Up
When you’ve gained a few good and engaging followers, increasing your frequency can be a smart decision. It’s not necessary to tweet 10 times/day, but if you can share valuable information and are gaining more and more followers, ramping it up to eight-ten tweets/day can certainly be helpful in growing your audience. Just remember that you should only be tweeting relevant, and engaging content.
Content is still King
Overall, the numbers above are just basic guidelines. The main concern should be that you are providing valuable and relevant content. Think about why a user would want to follow you in the first place. Are you interesting, funny, helpful, or conversational? The question of what you are tweeting is often times far more important than how often you are tweeting it.
Improvising
Very little on Twitter is based on science, so in many ways, all of this still depends. The right mix for you will be important to find. Sometimes, a large tweet frequency is difficult to maintain simply because you aren’t constantly connected to the internet. The key is to find the right balance for your business, your target audience, and your own brand’s content.
I’m a local small business, so how much should I be tweeting? This is a common question that I get asked all the time. To answer it, I think it is important to keep in mind what it’s like to be an actual user on Twitter. Reading tweets often moves fast, so a user simply can’t read it all. Most users just try to absorb a few bits of it every here and there, which is precisely the beauty of the social network.
As a marketing, your own tweet frequency will play off of a similar mindset. Your followers will not be reading everything that you Tweet, in fact, they won’t read the majority of what you tweet. For this reason, and in order to create and keep a consistent presence on Twitter, the answer to the question is very likely … more than you think.
Taco Bell has this new breakfast sandwich. I know this because their commercials play constantly on my TV and laptop. Like seriously, I’m sometimes a #BreakfastDefector because of them.
Every time these commercials air, Taco Bell is flirting with the fine art of frequency. How often is too often to share with your audience?
Social media marketing poses this same dilemma. You want to connect with your followers without driving them away. You want to aim for the perfect balance of sharing and listening. But you don’t want to be annoying, right?
Belief: You think there’s no time to tweet.
Running a local business doesn’t often leave too much free time to tweet very often. In our social media workshops, we generally advise people that they cannot tweet too much, and for most local businesses just starting out with Twitter, that is almost always completely correct. Most local businesses that are using Twitter suffer from not tweeting enough, and I rarely see any of them tweeting too much.
The most important thing to keep in mind, when you are evaluating how much to tweet, is what you are sharing. If you aren’t doing anything more than just pumping out links and advertising, then you definitely can tweet too much. This “push strategy” on Twitter isn’t always completely wrong, but it also isn’t great, and you will hit your “annoying” threshold pretty quickly.
However, if you are tweeting a nice balance of shared links, retweets, and conversations with others then you really have no limits, as 20+ tweets per day will only aid to your online exposure. Mixing these things with a few mentions of your products and services is a good place to start, you just want to make sure not to spend too much time talking about yourself. Twitter is meant to be a 2-way street.
Below, is a quick gauge that you can use to determine just how much you should be tweeting as a local business.
Getting Started
With more than 500 million tweets sent each day, there’s really not much attention to spare for any individual tweet. In fact, recent studies have shown that a tweet is only really ‘current’ for 18 minutes. You read that right, that’s how long your tweet gets attention, on average. So what’s the best time of day to send that tweet in order to squeeze the maximum amount of views and engagement out of those 18 minutes?
For a new Twitter user, I would recommend between 4 and 6 tweets per day. Four tweets is really a minimum, and for a beginner, it is often more than they can handle. Work your way to this level, and then evaluate how you can improve. Don’t just tweet to be tweeting, spend your tweets wisely and share valuable content.
Ramping Up
When you’ve gained a few good and engaging followers, increasing your frequency can be a smart decision. It’s not necessary to tweet 10 times/day, but if you can share valuable information and are gaining more and more followers, ramping it up to eight-ten tweets/day can certainly be helpful in growing your audience. Just remember that you should only be tweeting relevant, and engaging content.
Content is still King
Overall, the numbers above are just basic guidelines. The main concern should be that you are providing valuable and relevant content. Think about why a user would want to follow you in the first place. Are you interesting, funny, helpful, or conversational? The question of what you are tweeting is often times far more important than how often you are tweeting it.
Improvising
Very little on Twitter is based on science, so in many ways, all of this still depends. The right mix for you will be important to find. Sometimes, a large tweet frequency is difficult to maintain simply because you aren’t constantly connected to the internet. The key is to find the right balance for your business, your target audience, and your own brand’s content.