Scheduled Tweeting is almost synonymous with spamming, but that simply doesn’t have to be the case. There are may legit reasons to schedule a Tweet. Here are my top three reasons for doing so.
Posing questions during the most active times. Even though Twitter is global, your follower list still has peak times. This can be determined through various tools or by just knowing your follower list. You probably know if they are more active late at night, early in the morning, on weekends, or during lunch. It makes sense, then, to ask a question during this time if you want to generate the most amount of replies. Instead of trying to remember to Tweet at 11 am on Thursday, why not just schedule it?
Spreading out the link love. Or Retweet love, for that matter. It’s great if you want to share links to other people’s blog articles, or Retweet your favorite quotes from one of the numerous quote profiles. But it’s not so great to bomb your followers. Some Twitter users only follow a handful of users, so several posts in a short time frame will fill up their Tweet stream. I have definitely been guilty of this time to time. However, one way to spread it out without coming back every fifteen minutes is to schedule your shares.
Participating in a hashtag. Some hashtags only occur on certain days, such as #fridayreads. I almost always remember to contribute on Wednesday, or Sunday, but usually not on Friday. So, instead, I schedule my #fridayreads Tweet and let Hootsuite handle the rest. As an added perk, I remember to check what others have posted to that hashtag once I see it come up in my sent list.
As you can see, scheduling doesn’t have to be about sharing your “buy my book” Tweet over. . .and over. . .and over. . .
Actually, it shouldn’t be used for that, at all. Instead, use it to further your social networking potential without needing to keep checking the clock and calendar.
This article originally appeared on Rainy of the Dark.
Good article. I wish more people would schedule their posts. If I get a whole lot at once I generally skim over them.