Each second, an average of 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, adding up to more than 350,000 tweets each minute, 500 million tweets daily, and 200 billion tweets per year, according to digital marketing consultancy Paper Gecko, Ltd. How can a company cut through all that din?
A barrage of industry research has focused on this question because the answer is so essential to businesses large and small. Recommendations vary widely as to how often to tweet. Other tips for effective tweeting abound. One thing that social media experts agree on, though, is that the best way to cut through the noise is to offer great content that people want to read.
How Often Should You Tweet?
How often should you post on Twitter to receive the benefits of increased engagement, awareness, shares and traffic? The jury is still out on that point. After conducting its own research, Coschedule has recommended posting tweets about 15 times daily.
On the other hand, in examining 11,000 tweets from global brands, Social Bakers found that the ideal frequency of tweets depends almost entirely on the company’s goals, observed Neil Patel, founder of consultancy firm Quick Sprout, in an article in Forbes.
If you simply want to generate more total responses, the sky is the limit. Tweeting even 50 times daily did not result in any adverse effects on a company’s account, according to Patel.
If a company’s goal is to optimize engagement per tweet, however, Social Bakers advises just one to five tweets per day. Actually, the average engagement rate per tweet has a tendency to decline after the third tweet posted on the same day, Social Bakers contends on its website.
Although you should tweet frequently, you shouldn’t do so in bursts, writes Jason DeMers, founder and CEO of consultancy AudienceBloom, in another article in Forbes. DeMers points to a Korean research study showing that a common reason why readers unfollow is because of too many tweets in a short period of time.
Other Tips for Successful Tweeting
In his article, DeMers provides 50 free ways for increasing your number of followers on Twitter. Suggestions fall into categories such as following others so they will follow you back, tweeting content in a way that it really gets seen, and promoting your Twitter account effectively.
Businesses should promote their Twitter accounts through their other social media accounts as well as through their websites, business cards and brochures.
Yet the best ways to build followers are all about tweeting content that’s so enticing and/or informative that it’s likely to be retweeted, according to DeMers.
Compelling Content Holds the Key
In fact, as his No. 1 tip, DeMers, suggests regularly tweeting a variety of helpful and relevant content. Doing so gives you the best bet to getting the most clicks, retweets and followers, and it is a rule that can be effectively followed even by small businesses with non-existent budgets, he maintains.
Countless other experts agree about the importance of high quality content in engaging users. HootSuite advises companies to always provide value to users on Twitter and other social media channels, whether by informing, inspiring, persuading, or entertaining them.
On its own business channel, Twitter suggests going cross channel to engage users by showcasing brand narrative over time with a company’s current and past blog posts, for instance.
Amway’s tweets about a recent blog post constitute one excellent example of providing high value content. The blog inspires users by explaining Amway’s company values and mission while doing a highly effective job of quashing false rumors about Amway being a scam or a pyramid scheme.
Conclusion
It takes a lot of doing to cut through the 500 million tweets issued daily on Twitter, although the results are well worth it. Regardless of how often you tweet, how well you promote your Twitter account, or whatever else you do, the bottom line is to engage Twitter users with compelling content they want to read.
