Scott Stratten and I disagree, heaven forbid. The subject? Scheduled tweets.
He only has 92,000 more Twitter followers than I do, and yet I have the gall to think a bit differently about how and when to schedule tweets.
It's not the first time I've disagreed with the "authority." You may remember last year's response to an issue of Website Magazine.
Scott tweeted the following about the topic:
"Sending out pre-scheduled tweets is like sending a mannequin of u to a networking event with a post-it note attached."I disagree, and here's why.
When is your market awake?
Here's the thing about social media, it's based on social interaction.The cornerstone of social interaction is being active when your market is awake and willing to engage.
I see scheduling tweets in the same manner.
If I'm awake and working at 1 a.m. -- which is often the case -- and I have something interesting and conversation-worthy worth tweeting, I might schedule that tweet to update later that day, when most of my audience is actually awake.
Listen carefully though, because here's the caveat.
I completely agree with Scott's tweet, IF you're sending out tweets when you don't have the opportunity or interest to respond. That would be comparable to a mannequin.
I think what Scott's referring to (Scott you can clarify) are those accounts that consist of nothing but automated tweets, no replies, and nothing but a script bot behind the account name.
Here's how I use scheduled tweets differently.
Don't miss a thing
I try to set aside an hour every morning for reading -- whether it's for going through my RSS feed or the latest book on my nightstand.And it's usually after that hour that I've found some inspiration, a link worth sharing, or something worth debating.
Twitter is for sharing, so that's what I do, I share links and quotes and questions that fascinate and inspire me.
But if I'm being honest, I'm far too forgetful to remember a link or a question that I wanted to tweet out. Scheduling tweets help me capitalize on the in-the-moment inspiration while maintaining a throughout-the-day presence.
One thing is for sure though, I'll never schedule a tweet to run when I'm not able to jump-in to a conversation arising from it.
Twitter's like a phone -- my tweets connect me to the network, and when they respond, I'm there to talk back.
Be consistent
If you take a look at my Twitter feed, you'll see it's pretty spread out throughout the day. And that's because I'm monitoring and engaging on Twitter fairly often throughout it.Rather than overwhelm my followers with a batch of tweets all at once, I spread out the tweet goodness throughout the day.
You'll also note that my tweets don't continue while I'm sleeping, while I'm flying, while I'm driving, while I'm...
Instead, you'll probably see a tweet around once an hour (replies and other engagement not included). My activity is largely spread out throughout the day and easy to digest.
In scheduling tweets, I'm seeking to engage with as many followers as I can, throughout all day parts.
What do you think?
I schedule two or three tweets daily. Some the day before, others the day of. And all with the intent of more engagement with new faces. Do you schedule your tweets? Whether you do or don't I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, so go head, step up and leave a comment.
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