Although this topic has been covered quite a number of times by different bloggers. I want to share my point of view on this. Problogger asked his readers how many times they post tweets on links to their blog post.
The results? According to problogger readers, 25.17% of the readers post it at least once and 34.43% tweet it twice. In my opinion everyone should retweet their article at least two times in a day and NOT once.
Source: problogger
@GuyKawasaki did a good argument at social media success summit where he talk about retweeting a blog post at least 4 times a day. In his argument he used @CNN news as an example where he said that the news are replayed throughout the day and they use the same news and repeat it.This is because people aren’t around to watch @CNN 24/7. Same goes with twitter. People don’t really have the time to monitor your twitter feed 24/7 read every tweet that you post on twitter.
So in @guykawasaki’s argument he suggested people to retweet it 4 times in a day and 8 hours apart.
I tend to agree with guy Kawasaki and here is why.
1.Time zone
This is one reason why people should at least post their tweet twice a day. The reason so is because when you’re posting your article it will be because you’re awake at that time. It might be that you just finished writing your blog post. When you post it on twitter half of the world might be asleep or not around so they might missed your tweet although you have written a great blog post with a great headline. So basically you might be missing out!
2. Nobody is online all the time
As yourself a question. Are you watching tv 24 hours a day? (I hope not) I bet the answer is no. The same goes with twitter. You might miss a news or a tweet because you’re not online at that time. Same goes with you posting a tweet to your followers. They might miss your article if you don’t post it at the right time.
3. Too many followers
Another reason is you or your followers might have too many followers themselves and your tweet might not pop up at often as they should. I have a list of 300 people where it is the list of my favourite people to retweet from.
Although I have a list of 300 people, I still I miss a lot of tweets. What I do is I have a few list and I list some of my friends a few times so that they appear if different list.I have list ranging from 50 to 500 people.For those who follow 2000 people then your tweet might have trouble appearing of the time line if they don’t utilize twitter list.
I also use other service to help me look for tweets. One of my favourite that I recommend of everyone is using @chirrps where people will be able to see the current and hottest tweet at the moment and won’t miss the hottest tweet.
4. Tweets “DIE” after the first hour
According to latest research by @sysomos, tweets literally “die” after the hour of posting
Basically, its showing that 92 percent of retweets happens within the first hour of posting. So if you’re posting it only once a day then you might be missing a ton of retweets and a ton of potential readers reading your blog post that might have taken you 1-2 hours to write.
Don’t forget that from that 92% of retweets happening within the first hour,
- some might be sleeping as they are from different time zones
- some might be working a 9-5 job
- some might be in school
- some might miss your tweet
My suggestion?
Post at least twice in a day and post it for two days. That means you’re posting it 4 times. You can spread them out 12 hours apart. This is because not everyone will be on twitter everyday unless they are twitter addicts like you and me of course. I personally post tweets from 2 -4 times testing different titles. Sometimes a tweet might not be popular can be popular with some simple tweet with the headline and timing.
So how many times do you post tweets to your blog? What are the results?
I'm going to try this and see what impact it has on traffic and followers.
Great advice, I always was unsure of how many times to do it, however was always concious of time zones. The tweet life cycle data was really interesting.
Thanks
Darragh
Sure, tell me how it goes for you Dave.
Thanks Darragh,
Glad you found the advice useful, I play with timing a lot and I notice its one of the main factors. Luck too! LoL
Aaron
After I started following Guy K's advice I got more traffic and followers — and no complaints 🙂
Congrats Kathy!
I follow his advice too.
Very interesting topic. I tend to Tweet my articles x3 times a day Morning, Afternoon then again at night.
Hi Aaron, nice post. I agree that if you follow too many people tweets will go unnoticed in the timelime. If you really want you post to have high probability to get noticed, you should at least set 10 posts with different tweets in a 10-minute period (or 1 tweet per minute).
Through this, there is a high chance that your post might appear on your followers' timelines.
Just a thought.
But I am amazed how you grew your followers to 146,559 (as of writing this post). Amazing!
Awwesome post! I've only been tweeting my posts once then promptly forgetting about them. I just recently started retweeting and it has increased my seo rankings quite a bit. Thanks for sharing your wonderful insights!
Great post Aaron.
I tweet 1-2 times a day and it works great.
Now i'm going to try your method.
Thanks for sharing this great Post Aaron.
great stuff as always…I've done Guy's recommendations and it does work, but I think I was too aggressive and there was some backlash so I decided to stop doing it. I will resume with a lot less aggressive schedule in the future. Say tweet an old blog post every 15-20 days (assuming its still relevant) and several times during the first week of publishing a new post.
Great topic Aaron. I usually tweet my posts twice. But I also go back and pst some older content once a day too. I am constantly getting new readers and followers so why not expose them to some other work that I'm proud of? Thanks!
I agree with you on the number of tweets. I tested tweeting one time per day versus two, three, and four. Three times per day, six hours apart won. It had the highest click rate and lowest bounce rate. I haven't had any complaints about the multiple tweets. Thank you for starting the conversation and sharing your perspective.
You dont literally have to Tweet it 4 times a day. If you have followers who tweet your blog, then you can be more subtle and get them to comment on your blog and ( if using the Disqus system) that comment gets RT'd out in any case. Then, you can also say 'thanks' via a tweet to someone who tweets it for you with maybe a little extra comment by you tacked on. All this helps to keep the blog circulating. Lastly, if you tweet it around when the majority of folks have lunch breaks, tea breaks or when likely to be traveling to work on train say, then you will have greater readership and tweets from others. 🙂
Once a day is an excellent starting point. Once it becomes a habit then a person might do more just because they've gotten the process into their internal e-minder/memory.
Mark, Good idea about tweeting older content too. Think I may have to steal this idea.
Aaron, My honest answer is not enough. I need to tweet my own stuff more in general (like Mark's idea of sharing older posts too). I usually only tweet something once, maybe twice, during the day. That said, I think a ratio or formula can be risky.. if you say you need to tweet a post 4-6 times during the day.. but what if you're not really tweeting other content, then all your posts are about you which can be a turn off. Like the advice about staggering times, peak/off peak hours etc. Thanks.
This post is a good eye opener to just how behind I am on taking advantage of that scheduled tweets function inside of Hoot Suite.
Tweets dont die, only pass by ignored, I say this for experience, when people ignore your blog posts is cause your information is poor and people dislike´s it, so gain new experience´s like this article says, retweet 4 or 5 times per day and make big deals with your information, also get sponsors or get cool fans.
Please excuse my lack of knowledge. Who is Guy K and how can I read his advice?
You didn't read the problogger poll did you ? Or if you do, you can't maybe see the difference between 0, 1 or 2.
I explain it for you : 1725 people DON'T tweet their blogpost. That's 25,17%
2360 people tweet their blogpost ONCE, that's 34,43%
972 people tweet their blog post TWICE. That's 14,18% (14 18 like WWI. We're screwed.)
Finally, 2769 people out of 6854 post their blogposts on twitter TWICE OR MORE. That's 40,40% (ok we're safe, it's not 40,44).
Well, you did a little mistake starting counting from 1 in place of 0. The rest of your post is interresting. But with such a start, can I trust the rest of your theory ?
Another observation : none of your readers notice that. And it was obvious to see on the picture of the poll that “1” was far bigger than “2”. Are you sure your readers read you ? 😉
And by the way, I use twitter to follow my close friends and some lulz accounts. If they post the same link twice, I unfollow them. Twitter is not only use by so called “communauty managers” (read morons) who feel the need to spam twitter with their shitty blogposts.
OK, I'm done.
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster be with you.
I don’t disagree, but two is the limit. More, and I unfollow the person. Twitter is not CNN
I usually only tweet once ever, so I definitely need to step up my “tweeting” action on blog posts. I don’t want to be annoying to my followers so I try not to promote my own crap at all on twitter…
I post my link two to four times over a 48 hour period, but I vary the wording so it doesn’t look like the same old same old. Different wording also attracts different clicks and re-tweets.
Great information thanks Aaron
I have found by trial and error that tweeting my blog posts 3 or 4 times over 2 days works best.
I checked the click rate on my URL shortener and found that if I posted at certain times my tweets were not getting clicks. I am in the UK and have to time them to suit USA time.
Sandy
It’s only 140 characters.. there’s no need to ever repeat a tweet. I use links to post to answer question on Twitter, sharing when it can help
I tweet them about 5 times. I totally agree with @GuyKawasaki and your view here. Because of my intuition and your evidence. Especially reason 4, is quite convining. both in size and numbers. 😉
A fantastic tactics for tweeting and getting more traffic. Thanks