Twitter, one of the most popular social media networks with 100 million active users and over 500 million tweets per day, is a very fertile ground for anybody who would want to share anything with their followers within the challenging space of 140 characters.
“Twitter is a high-volume channel, and unless you Tweet enough to get noticed you may be wasting your effort,” Track Social stated.
Brandwatch analyzed the top 253 brands across multiple categories, and in multiple countries and found that 45.5 percent tweeted 10 to 39 times per week, around 14 percent tweeted 50 to 59 times, and less than 10 percent tweeted 100 to 199 times.
Firstly, here is why brands are on twitter?
So majorly the tweets comprise of broadcasting about their products & services, customer engagement and customer service.
But who decides what should be the right number of tweets to not only maintain but also expand the follower base? Who decides how much is too much?
Brands, here are some tips for your tweeting habits!
- Give them what they want!
Brands need to understand why people follow them. Nielsen twitter consumer survey, UK said 55% people followed the brand coz they loved the brand and like being notified for latest updates, special offers and promotions. These people like hearing from you and will be with you unless you tweet too much and spam their feeds with unnecessary content.Obviously you will not have a new product or offer daily for your followers, so would you stop tweeting till a new product launch? No! Instead you can have a healthy mix of content with special info about the products, behind the scene pictures, interesting facts about the brand or anything that your followers will enjoy reading. Don’t overdo it by tweeting 100 times a day with all these facts. The social media experts recommend that posting 3-5 times each day roughly once in 3 hours with useful content will do the trick. - Make the most of the best times to tweet
If you, as a brand tweet around 10 tweets a day but only in the morning, it will not be visible to the people due to real time nature of Twitter. The best time for tweeting is 8 am to 7 pm which will give 30% higher engagement. The highest engagement is seen at noon and 6 pm. Weekends drive 17% higher engagements so 7 tweets per day on weekends is a must. - Content is the key
Twitter is less of a personal journal and more of a professional marketing platform. As a brand you have to stay away from lifestyle tweets. Your content should be in line with your online objectives. Unique and original content adds to the interest of your followers who would be looking forward to your posts. Keeping abreast with the latest issues and news will improve the relevance of your posts on Twitter and also boost your credibility. Using no more than 2 hashtags per tweet and pictures will help your tweets to reach to a wider audience. - Timing of the Tweets is important
Planning and scheduling your posts can be an effective method of being visible with good content and not cluttering only one slot of time by your tweets. You may also want to be visible worldwide if you cater to international audience. Scheduling your tweets with respect to time zones will help you reach your followers worldwide. Many tools and researches are available to help you decide the best time to tweet but twitter being of dynamic nature, the tweets with breaking news and topical tweets should not be bound to a schedule and should be tweeted at the right moment. People will look forward to your posts more if you give them relevant and interesting news and your tweets will be appreciated for being fresh and updated. - Feedback gives you clues
Listen and observe what others have to say about your posts. If your posts are not talked about frequently or if you find people complaining about too many posts from you, you need to make adjustments accordingly. There is no defined numbers which say how many tweets are too less or more. You need to match up to the expectations as per your online objectives. Thus if you tweet only 4 times a day which generates a great response in terms of favourites and retweets, it will be good enough to judge that you are doing a great job. On the other hand, if 10 tweets a day by you is failing to get a good number of responses, it serves as a feedback that your content needs a revision. - Are you boring your Audience?
Your activity on twitter decides the number of followers adding or subtracting to your account. To ensure a healthy follower base, your activity should consists more of original content tailored for your audience. You can Retweet on occasion, but ensure it is not the only thing you do on Twitter. Ensure that your tweets don’t exceed 110 characters. When you leave room in a tweet, it makes it easier for people to retweet you and add their own commentary.
There is no hard and fast rule as to how many tweets SHOULD be posted. It is rightly said by Dan Wilkerson of LunaMetrics – Predict. Measure. Repeat. Predict the number of tweets that align with your online objective, Measure using various tools available and Optimize and Repeat the process to continue soaring higher with great quality content and valuable followers.