You have probably noticed that some of your tweets yield less traffic than others. Using Twitter is essentially a science turned into an art. There are so many variables that go into tweeting that only experience can tell you what works most effectively. One of the easiest things you can learn is to time your tweets so that they get the most exposure.
There are two things that you need to consider when you create your schedule for using Twitter. Since you should be using Twitter on a daily basis, you should consider the best times to send your tweets. You can also think about using the site more often on days where your tweets are most likely to get noticed. Ideally, you would use a combination of the two strategies.
Hopefully, you have the opportunity to get into a daily routine where you can maximize your Twitter results. Of course, not everyone can take advantage of this. Some people have employers that block Twitter access and may not have access to smartphone applications that allow them to tweet whenever they please.
One study was conducted by Pear Analytics, which may be helpful to many users. This study tracked 2,000 tweets over two weeks to determine when the best time to tweet certain messages. This study was fairly detailed and made some interesting observations:
- The best time to have a message retweeted was on Monday or at 12:30 p.m. (Eastern time)
- News tends to be most popular on Twitter around 2 p.m.
- Conversational tweets tend to take place between 2 and 4 p.m.
Knowing when to send your tweets can make a big difference to your social media campaign. Granted, different variables play into each other, so you can't hold yourself to the rules found in these experiments. Your best bet is to understand the nature of your own followers.
A number of Twitter users have followed their daily activity on Twitter and monitored the results. One user provided this useful chart. He says that if you Twitter just after lunchtime, you will receive the most exposure. The further he moved from this time, the less traffic he received. Interestingly, he found that he received less traffic during the morning than the evening.
Consider tracking the activity of your own followers and looking for patterns. Decide if those patterns make sense. You need to think about your own demographics. If your followers are primarily college students, you are likely to find that their Twitter activity is more random because they all have their own schedules (or may not have schedules at all). If you are tweeting to people from a certain timezone, it is probably easier to spot patterns than if you are trying to reach followers from all over the world.
When you are putting together your social media strategy, it is helpful to know what works for you as an individual. There is no point following studies like these if they don't help you reach your followers. Always keep in mind that social media is an art as well as a science and the procedures that work for one guru may not work for you.
Kalen Smith is the founder of Engineer-a-Business, a provider of business-to-business services and informational products for developing technology businesses. Read more about Kalen here.
