Here a “how to tweet” question that comes up often, so I’m posting some of the research that we did when we wrote Twitter Revolution.. it still great advice today.
One common social media automation idea is that you can reach different people in different time zones by setting up a repeated tweet every few hours.
Fact is, you will reach more people with that specific tweet, and if you are tweeting just the one tweet it’s likely that almost no one will notice.
Unfortunately, most of the people using this technique fail to add any real value beyond the self promotional tweets. So while I would never say that you should not repeat a tweet (after all, our mantra is NO RULES) I do regularly caution against having a profile page that is full of “come and look at me” type tweets
@GuyKawasaki wrote a piece showing his results when he repeated a tweet:
You would think that the skies would open up, and I’d get struck by lightning by the Twitter gods. Think again. In the case of repeating a tweet four times in thirty-two hours, there was a big spike for the first tweet, but the next three still yielded very good results. In total, the four posts resulted in 5,059 clickthroughs in tranches of 1,481, 1,415, 1,208, and 955; note, however, I looked at the server log and approximately 20% of these clickthroughs are bots. 700 people signed up for this service, by the way, because of my four tweets.
As suspected, more people saw the tweet each time it went out and the total clicks went way up.
What Guy left out was that he has a reputation for saying very smart things and engaging in real conversations with many tweeps.
What I prefer to see is self promotion with variety. I often use the same URL in a dozen or more tweets in a single day, for instance, the link to my Twitter radio show However, I use the link in unique tweets, mostly in answer to people asking me a question.
Sometimes, I’ll promote an upcoming event or show with several hints about the show. One tweet will have the show announcement, another will thank the guest I’ve booked, yet another will mention what we will cover on the show.
What about RT (ReTweets)?
Use the same ideas for tweets I see from those I follow, I often send out their message to my tweet stream. I’ll use the lazy RT button if that is available in the software client I’m using that day, sometimes I think what was written was perfect. But usually, I try to add value with a comment, or by writing my own tweet. Other times, I’ll see a link, read a post and end up with a blog post of my own (as happened today with this post.. thanks to @24k for the link)
It’s only 140 characters.. be creative and write more about your subject. Anyone seeing more than one will appreciate the details and you get a new batch of readers each time. When you get to have hundreds of thousands of followers, you can repeat without worry. Until then, give us unique valuable content whenever you can.
How to Tweet?
There are NO RULES on what you post of Twitter. It’s a communication channel and whatever works for the parties in a conversion is perfect.
For me, great content is always great content, and nothing is a important as talking to real people, answering real question and having conversations.
How about you?
Good content, a few good keywords.
Is what I do 🙂
Martin
Do you post keywords or search by keyword to read?
Twitter is an awesome tool in Social Media, moving toward mobile it is an asset. Thanks for the interesting article Warren will share.
Joan
How much time to you spend on mobile compared to computers?
I’m still in twitter infancy.
I’ll get more involved once it sorts itself out, but it will still be up to everyone to use it as they want. It’s just another tool.
Angus
What “sorting” are you looking for?
Just like any other tool, Twitter is a way to talk to people. If you don’t use it, fine by me.. Frankly, I use it because I like to connect with who is there. That’s the reason I started in 2007, and it’s never changed
Very interesting topic Warren!
When I started helping few of my clients with SEO and social media promotion I took Twitter as a main tool for promotion. My first advice to them was stop the self promotion. My client is not a multi billion brand neither a celebrity. Don’t expect your followers to click your self promoted blog link repeatedly flushed out through the Twitter stream.
You may have 100k followers but that does not mean that all of them are following you because they are so moved by your blog posts. Most of the time it is a give and take policy with Twitter following. So why not try the reverse and try tweeting others good content related to your niche.
Through my clients Twitter account I implemented a 5:95 polict (5% self promotion and 95% promoting others good content). My client had nothing to lose. The CTR coming through Twitter was below 2% of all the referral traffic. But in 6 months time Twitter became the #1 referral source for the traffic.
Other bloggers started noticing my clients’ Twitter account and in return they started Retweeting content from the blog.
Like you mentioned, there are no rules here. Choose the best policy that fits you. Be nice to others.
My personal Tweet policy is that, I seldom tweet from the established main stream publications like Mashable or Huffington post. They are big boys and have enough advertising budget. In the case of a small business owner who is trying to market his business through his/her blog is more likely to recognize and acknowledge my tweet than the big boys. And the people behind these small blogs are real people.
Sunish
Look like you are suggesting that I do what I’ve been doing for six years, and what I’ve been teaching since I wrote the first book about Twitter back in 2008.
Great advice. Glad to see we agree on so much.
This post was talking about repeating tweets and I do that from time to time, measuring what get the most discussion and conversation between my network and myself. Most of them aren’t MY posts. 🙂
Anyway, the numbers are the point of interest here. Some have tried to tell me that Twitter will ban an account for using the same URL twice or that massive number unfollow due to a single tweet. Since I watch the numbers on my account and talk to up to 100 people a day in individually conversations I’ve pretty much seen it all 🙂
The only slight disagreement I have your wonderful advice. I really believe NO RULES, and don’t assign percentage splits. If I did, it would be very close to what you stated 🙂
I totally agree with you on your view on repeating the same URL “I try to add value with a comment”. I think adding the value is the key point. And the best part is you “watch the numbers” which most casual Twitter users ignore and cause trouble with Twitter spam boat/team.
I would say a large number of twitter users may not agree with the Twitter policy you’ve been advocating since most of them come to Twitter with the hope that “I” can reach out to millions of people.
What annoys me with the same URL tweets or RT is that, with the automation they have the same repeated url send me to the same landing page which is nothing more than a sign up page. Does it really give any value? I don’t think so. Instead of sending the followers to the same sign up page 4 times a day, direct them to a rich content page which give real value. Most of them fail to create or lazy to create rich content page and use the same old sign up page.
Thanks again Warren for the rich content and your efforts to educate people in social media.
I have not advocated a policy. I’m showing results of a study. What you or I do, or how we feel about it was not the intent of this post. Guy Kawaski’s research has been tested by me, and others. It’s a fact.
I do not advocate for automation to repeat tweets. I also do not advocate using Twitter to send people to a “sign up page” I share content, not ads, so your assumption that I’m using Twitter in a certain way is mistaken. Most of my tweets are answers to other tweets. The URL’s I share are mostly posts and news pieces that I know my audience is looking (I know because they tell me).
Further. I don’t advocate for using the same URL and tweet repeatedly. I do use the same URL in new tweets, especially when answering questions.
I hope you’ll continue to advocate engagement with real people talking to each other on Twitter, or any other network
I’m fairly new to Twitter, also. Thanks for some good basics!
Whatever platform, the basics are the same. Listen to your connections, talk to a person, not the group and treat all as friends 🙂
Thank you for the post Warren. Twitter is one platform that I do not use to it’s potential, and I appreciate any tips I come across.
Today, I mostly go for connection with a person.. the platform really doesn’t matter. I just talk where I find people 🙂
Repeat Tweets? Why? There are some many ways to say the same thing. If you cannot spin 140 characters, you’ve got a bigger problem than you think.
Twitter frowns upon repeat tweets with the same exact text and link. While it may have proven successful for some, most people will be setting themselves up for account suspension.
Be creative, add value, be genuine… keep your main link in your bio and let people find you. Let them ask you about what you’re doing.
I agree. I end up saying the same thing, referring to the same URL and bringing back topics all the time.
You can use the same exact tweet. Reports of it being disallowed are just wrong.. However, it’s so easy to write 140 chars, I just don’t bother 🙂
I’m new to twitting and it seems like I’m too much behind as everyone is using it. Great information here.