Welcome to the second day of Tweet Week. Today, we’ll explore the frequency of tweets.

How Often Should I Tweet?

The more you tweet, the more opportunities you’ll have to interact with other people. Everyone doesn’t use Twitter at the same time, obviously, and, as discussed yesterday, it’s not likely that people will look up older tweets because there are just too many to keep up with! There have been occasions when I’ve signed out for the night on Twitter and, at the same time, people are signing in for the morning! Twitter is a global phenomenon. But, even without that, just because you use Twitter in the morning doesn’t mean others in your same time zone are using it too. They may get on in the afternoon or evening.

So, what does that mean for your tweets?

Well, if you are tweeting with someone directly, clearly you don’t need to tweet each response more than once! You’d just look foolish. And, if your tweets are not earth-shattering, once is generally sufficient. Treat Twitter like a conversation. You don’t say something and then bring it up again moments later.

Then, there are your important tweets, or at least tweets you consider important. An example might be a blog post or a new product in your store. Since you want readers or customers, you want to maximize the effectiveness of tweets talking about it.

Here is where many people make their mistake. This is the point generally where the concept of social networking goes out the window. I’ve seen people with tweet streams that are nothing but a screen full of “Fiddling with my blog post at http://…” (For one thing, whatever automated script thinks that wording is a good idea needs a clue.) Similarly, you’ll see people whose profiles are filled with tweets like “Check out my new ProductX!”, “Have you heard about ProductX?”, and “ProductX is the greatest thing ever!”, all with links to the sales page. These accounts will get unfollowed in short order.

No, you’ve got to have some give and take, and give more than you expect in return. In general, it’s recommended to have four or five non-marketing tweets for every marketing tweet you send out. And, something promoting a blog post could be considered a marketing tweet, so don’t bend the rules for that.

There are exceptions, however. An informative blog post will be given more leeway than a sales pitch. So, if you are offering valuable information, that’s going to be seen as a higher value than a sales page. Thus, you can get away with tweeting about your blog posts more easily than you can a marketing pitch. Still, it would be best to use the 4-5 non-marketing (i.e., non-blog post related too) tweets for every blog post promotional tweet.

How many times throughout the day can you tweet about your blog post or product? Again, the generally recommended limit is about four times throughout the day. An informative blog post could go a little more often. However, don’t duplicate your tweet each time. Instead, you might want to highlight a different bit of information included in the link. That way, you’re not annoying people with the same thing over and over again, and you might also reach people that may have not been motivated by an earlier piece of information but might be made curious by a later bit of information. So, changing it up does double duty.

Okay, But How Often Should I Tweet?

You should tweet often enough to be sociable. One thing people will recognize is patterns. Bad marketers are often easy to spot. They’re easy to spot if they don’t try to be sociable at all, because you’ll see them using Twitter as an RSS feed or you’ll see them doing nothing but posting their marketing links and not interacting at all with anyone. But, they are also easy to spot because you’ll also see them following the “rules” to the letter. You’ll see them sending out four or five non-marketing message, some of them are @replies (which sometimes aren’t an actual reply to a tweet but just written to appear that way), followed by their marketing tweet.

You don’t want to be profiled that way, especially if you are trying to promote your product or company. You’ve got to be interested in meeting people in a social environment, and realize that not everyone, no matter how targeted they may be, is going to buy from you.

Let’s say you have 1000 followers. When you think about it, if the first thing that goes through your mind is that you have 1000 wallets waiting to be opened, perhaps Twitter is not right for you.

Granted, it’s natural to think of stuff like that occasionally. You might think, wow, if I could get 2% of my followers to buy a $50 product from me, I’d make $1,000! That’s okay. I’m not saying that’s wrong; what I’m saying is that should not be your primary motivation or your initial thought.

You have to put the relationship first. And sometimes that means not trying to sell them something.

The truth is that most people don’t mind marketing messages. They understand you’re trying to make a living. But, no one wants to feel like you only see them as a source of income for yourself. I know I don’t like it when someone constantly tries to sell me stuff. But, if there’s an established relationship–and a relationship doesn’t mean that you have to go out for dinner or anything, it doesn’t have to have had a huge time investment–then I’m more apt to listen when that person tells me about something they think I might be interested in. Doesn’t mean that I’ll buy, only that I’ll listen and give it due consideration.

The lesson here is: relationship first, marketing second (if at all).

So, how often should you tweet? There’s no real formula here. You just have to tweet often enough to be sociable. Some days, that might mean a couple tweets here and there. Other days, you might tweet up a storm! Go with the flow! The most important thing is not to inundate people with marketing messages. With Twitter, it’s better to under-market than over-market!

Are There Exceptions?

There are always exceptions! Again, always remember: People first! So, if something is important or newsworthy, tweeting about it more often is natural and, in many cases, even expected. An example might be phishing scams that occurred earlier this year. Since you never know when people might log on, tweeting warnings at shorter intervals can be helpful for new people logging in, so that they can more quickly learn about the problem and avoid it.

Of course, it is possible to overdo it. You just have to tread a little carefully and make sure that what you’re doing is actually helpful. There’s no set formula; you really have to go with your gut instinct on this one.

In some cases, you might have tag-team tweeting, of sorts. If someone that is likely to be followed by many of your followers is logging off Twitter, then you could pick up the mantle and continue to warn people. Or vice versa.

Just remember that you have more flexibility with informational and helpful tweets than you do with those that are purely marketing in nature.

Ending Your Day on Twitter

When ending your day on Twitter, you should end it with some type of useful or interesting tweet. Don’t let your last tweet be “Good night, Twitter friends!” I make that my second to last tweet, if necessary. Remember that, when someone looks at your profile, your last tweet will be in the largest letters. So, you want people to form a good impression of you from it, as it will likely be the first thing they see. If your last tweet is something like “LOL!” in response to a friend, that’s what’s going to stand out! Make a good impression with your last tweet of the day, or the last tweet you leave before logging off Twitter for a while.

Again, as mentioned, Twitter is a social networking service. You have to remember the social part of it. People don’t go on Twitter to buy stuff. They go on Twitter to connect with friends and make new friends. Relationship marketing can be a part of that, but if you make marketing your primary focus–and not the people–the relationship part will be missing from your relationship marketing equation!

That’s all for today. Please check in again tomorrow for Day Three of Tweet Week!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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