I asked this question over on Twitter on the weekend and it was fascinating to hear the answers and see some of the thinking behind what different people do.
I thought I’d run it as a poll and open it up for some wider discussion here on the blog.
I’d love to get your comments on this topic. Why do you do the number of tweets that you do? Why don’t you do more/less? Do you use any tolls/automation to manage it – if so which ones?
Here’s some of the responses to my tweet asking the question:
“I only tweet a link to it once. I’ll tweet a second time if theres something interesting in the comment section.” – JadeCraven
“One. Sometimes two. Three if it really rocks. But I post daily and don’t want my Twitter to be an endless ME ME ME feed.” – CatherineCaine
“I tweet my new blog posts only once…to me, more is spammy, even tho I know not everyone will see it the 1st time…” – QuipsAndTips
“I always tweet a link straight after I post.Then maybe the next day depending on the post time, for those who may have missed it” – CptTremendous
“I space it out over days/times. Maybe btw 5-8 over a weeks time.” – MyMelange
“I usually retweet about three times, one in a.m., one in afternoon, one at night. Covers time zones.” – docudramaqueen
“Depends on importance and global relevance. If really important to me & relevant also to US audience, I may tweet twice in Aus..” – divinewrite
“Once. More than once is spam and makes followers unfollow and complain.” – Shuttlecock
See a full list of the responses to my original tweet here.
Hmm.. I just forget it, Twitter started as a marketing tool for my blog, but now it is just a fun thing to do. I automaticly tweet my posts, but normally I won’t tweet about them again..
Gonna tweet out a post right now!
I think once is enough, unless you have a very culturally diverse audience (i.e. half your readers are from AU and the other half US), then it might be appropriate at opposite times of the day.
If something is important I will try to hit the major timezone changeovers, otherwise just once.
I do on occasion “split test” headlines which can help you work out the best approach for a piece of content
I’m assuming you mean to your own posts – but you didn’t give a time reference (like per week? or per month?) Personally, I’ve only done it once, period. I typically do not do it at all. I figure if someone else likes my post, then they will tweet it. I’m not a “toot your own horn” kind of gal.
Some days I actually do automate about 3 – 4 tweets of a new post. Not every day and not for every post. I do this because I realize that different people are on Twitter at different times of the day and I want an opportunity to let different groups see my new post, especially during peak times.
If I see it’s been retweeted several times already, I might skip a few tweets. It all depends I guess. :)
Ironically you tweeted the link to this post 3 times straight after each other, deliberate? :P
About three times in different time zones so that it ensures more people get at least one exposure to it.
I always tweet right after I publish and then one more time, usually the next day. Because of the flow of Twitter, it’s easy for people to miss a one-time tweet. I rarely do it more than that, and Twitter is the only social medium where I repeat a link.
Interesting poll.
Ron
I generally tweet new posts about three times (morning, afternoon, and evening)…and occasionally again closer to an actual event a post might mention. I’ll also RT “vintage” and evergreen posts once in a while on days when I don’t have anything new going up.
Great question. I wonder if anyone has tested this? There’s a fine line between letting people know and twitter spam. If I tweet about a new blog post more than once, it’s never on the same day, but I don’t post daily so that works for me.
Usually only once. Maybe again the next day if I am looking for more feedback. Later I might come across an old post that is relevant and tweet it again. I do worry about the time zone differences and wonder if I should be doing it more often.
Hey Darren,
I only Tweet it once. I don’t want to look like I’m a self-serving individual.
My blog posts get tweeted automatically when they are posted. I use Pretty Links plugin for that. Then when I bookmark the blog post using OnlyWire, it gets tweeted one more time.
I am like docudramaqueen and do morning, afternoon and evening to get different time zones and viewers. But then I follow up a few weeks later and tweet again. If it is a post that generated interest, then will even do a reminder tweet a few months later – “Blast from the Past!”
I tweet posts when I know it is important to the blogger. I also tweet blog posts when they help to extend my expertise in my area. Finally, I obviously tweet my own posts and any that a handful of friends write.
Once here as well. But I will be watching this poll with interest. If anyone can convince me to do it more often, I’d definitely consider it.
I tweet once automatically. Sometimes I will tweet several times throughout a day or 2 if it is a good post. I don’t see anything wrong with covering time zones and different times people are active on Twitter. It only becomes spam if that is all you do. I am very active on Twitter and my own self promotion is only a small fraction of it.
I tweet links to my blog posts several times. Once when I first post, then I re-post it within the week and during the next several months I may post it again if the topic is relevant to other tweets circulating. One thing to keep in mind is I don’t post to my blog every day, usually only 2-3 times a month.
Hi,
I think 1 time tweet is good. Because when we update it so many times people think we’re just doing shameless blog promotion (it’s my opinion anyway). Also there ain’t much followers for me on Twitter and so I don’t expect much traffic from twitter.
I generally automate 3 tweets with different keywords and phrases over the course of a day when I post every day, generally morning, afternoon, and evening.
When I post MWF (my normal schedule when I’m not taking part in a Blogathon challenge), I post twice a day–noon and midnight.
I use Hootsuite to schedule them. And I have Feedburner autopost with the goo.gl address, too, as soon as the post is scheduled. Most of the time I count that as one of my daily tweets, though, I sometimes ignore it if I schedule for the wee-hours of the AM.
Generally, my posts automatically tweet once when published. But, later on in that day if there seems to be interest or lots of RT’s I might mention it 12 hours later in my Google Buzz – which posts to both facebook and twitter simultaneously .. so, I guess it could be more than once but I try not to abuse that. I would rather have my links tweeted a million times – as RT’s instead of by me.
However – I do have multiple twitter accounts. My @PetLvr tweets everything and is the one I chat on, but I have e.g. @Battling that is only for health posts. Some followers do not want to see my pet tweets just the health tweets so it will automate a tweet to both accounts for that specific purpose.
For the Project 365 that I am doing, I post in the entry in the evening and then I tweet about it. I will typically tweet it again the next day late in the morning.
I have links auto-tweeted once, and I’ll manually tweet articles that I guest write elsewhere.
My followers would drop me like a hot potato if I tweeted something 5 times.
I tweet once unless it’s a really popular topic or a good discussion is going. I’ll also tweet links to months old posts from time to time if I find them relevant.
I only tweet some of my/others posts. When I do tweet about a post, 80% of the time, I tweet about it once. The posts that i re-tweet, I re-tweet to reach an audience that was sleeping during the initial tweet.
As an experiment yesterday, I tweeted a link to my newest post FIVE times, starting at 8am my time and ending at 8pm. Had one of my highest traffic days ever and not one person complained about how many times I linked to it.
Today I am going with 4 tweets over the same time frame. But I think 2 times should be the minimum, once in the morning, once in the afternoon/evening. I think we have been all but brainwashed that any self-promotion is horrible, I am stunned to see so many people saying they NEVER link to their posts?
I would say that some post I will retweet them every 4 hours or so. But I try to just tweet only once so it doesn’t look spammy though.
If someone likes it or maybe ten people, then they’ll retweet and it goes viral hopefully.
Great question…but, in addition to everyone else’s answer I’m curious Darren, what’s yours? (I might have missed it…?). Thx.
I only tweet once (it does it automatically) unless it’s a giveaway or a post I REALLY want feedback on, them maybe once or twice more.
I don’t see anything wrong with tweeting your post a couple of times a day and even into the next few days. After all, people don’t live on twitter and tend to come and go quickly. They can easily miss one single tweet that you did 3 hours ago.
When I tweet the same post, I usually will reword the tweet from a different perspective. That way it sounds new and fresh. I’ve never had anyone complain that they’ve seen that post before. :)
I write a post on my prayer blog every day and RT it one time. Others often RT it and if the responses are engaged, I may RT it in the evening!
Honestly, I usually tweet a post once because more feels pushy. That may be something I need to get over.
I tweet links to new posts 2 -3 times because I know I get readers from around the globe and they’re all in different time-zones. I don’t feel this is excessive because, I don’t post that often and apart from these tweets, it’s really the only time my blog gets mentioned on Twitter.
I suspect that if I posted more often, I would Tweet about it less.
I use Feedburner to automatically tweet a new blog post just the once. More would be too spammy, I think.
I have, however, started going back to some of my better content that pre-dates my involvement with Twitter and tweeting the occasional “From the vault” message.
I usually end up tweeting about 3 times the day the article is published, and perhaps another once or twice into the future. We only publish 2-3 articles a week, and tweet often enough so it doesn’t come off as spam. Oh, and the chances of someone seeing my 3 tweets in one day are close to zero. The only way that can happen is if they visit my feed…in Which case they will notice that while we may promote ourselves, we also promote others and share great info.
I usually just tweet posts once using Twitterfeed.
I may change that now that I have read this. Does anyone know of a tool like Twitterfeed that will allow to tweet the same blog post more than once?
Hey Darren,
Good Question :)
I only Tweet once and there is no reason for tweeting so many times.
Thanks,
Dev
I only tweet about a fraction of my posts and, then, only once. Usually I tweet a link when it’s a new resource, particularly engaging post, or there’s an associated giveaway. Very rarely do I tweet a link more than once and then its twice usually spread out over a couple of day for a contest or similar post.
I have my posts tweeted automatically and only once. If it’s a particularly interesting post or there is a specific user on Twitter I’m trying to promote I’ll post about it again, but that’s rare. Anything more than that is definitely too in the face for most Twitter followers in my opinion.
I generally tweet 2 times on twitter. one just after the post published and another at the end of the day. Weelll how much time you tweet Darren?? Ankush, http://ankushwood.blogspot.com
I only tweet them once and rarely do I ever get a clickthrough directly from Twitter followers. I am beginning to lose faith in this as a marketing medium since there is so much noisae and so many people doing the same thing and not reading or listening to each other.
I know I probably just committed Twitter heresy, but come on, there are MUCH better and easier ways to get your message out to a lot of people than Twitter.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
I only tweet the links once, and I use Twitterfeed to do it automatically.
I’m really just not that into Twitter and don’t use it too often otherwise.
One tweet per new post is enough for me. I have no problem with going back and linking to archived posts once in a while, though, just to see if I can stir up any fresh interest in them.
Only once. I hate when people repeat their tweets, that usually happens from people that follow a lot of people so their timelines run fast.
And I do it manually. I do feel silly about that sometimes, but making a custom tweet seems worth those 30 seconds invested.
I promote each post once (automatically) on Twitter and Facebook. I will sometimes Tweet a post out a second time. Interesting question. I need to be more strategic. Lot to do.
Hey Darren,
I usually only tweet my post once but I don’t use twitter alot for marketing as I have heard that the traffic coming from there isn’t that great but I’m no guru and at the end of the day traffic is traffic.
Another great survey like this would be how often people email their list about a new blog post this would be an interesting one
Thanks Mate
Glyn
I see that the consensus is once, but usually tweet each post twice at different times of the day because I find that if it some people don’t catch it in the morning they’re less likely to look back at my tweets for the day so I give it another go in the evening or the following day. (I only post 3 times a week)
Great topic for debate. I try to keep it to tweets, each one unique and done manually. I only post once/week, but I have 3 blogs. Rationale is that I write a lot about the UK but live in CA, so I try to tweet at 2 different times to make up for the time diff. Like everyone else, I dislike it when people tweet too often about the same blog post. I do like William Reynolds’ idea of tweeting about archived posts.
I tweet once and post link on Facebook and Linkedin. Perhaps I’ll try with 2 tweets & 2 posts on Facebook and see if there is any response.
Joshua Black speaks the truth.