Your Twitter audience is online at times when you’re not – and let’s face it, consistently tweeting can be very time consuming. So, what’s the solution? Twitter recently released a feature where you can schedule tweets weeks in advance using their ads campaign dashboard. The best part? You do not need to pull out your credit card. This feature is free of charge for your Twitter account!
To get started, we’ll go through how to set up scheduled tweets on the Twitter app, how to create quality tweets that will engage your audience, the benefits and various aspects to consider when scheduling tweets, and reasons you should use Twitter.
Table of Contents
How to Schedule Tweets on Twitter
First, if you haven’t already, you need to create an account using the Twitter website, ads.twitter.com. The Twitter mobile app is available on both Android or iOS.
Steps to Schedule Your Tweets
- You can either click on the blue “Compose Tweet” button which appears on the right side of the tweets manager OR press on the “Creatives” tab and select “Tweets.”
- From here, select “Only Scheduled Tweets.”
- Then you will press on “Compose a scheduled tweet” or the blue “Compose tweet” button on the top right.
- The tweet box will then open up, allowing you to craft your scheduled tweet as you like (tips for what to write will be discussed next.) You can include images, locations, videos, polls, cards, and more!
- You will then be given two choices for your tweet: either post it as a “standard delivery” to all your followers or a “promoted only” which goes towards your Promoted Tweet campaign.
- Next, it gives you the option to “Post now” or “Custom” – where you will need to select a date and time (such as October 22 at 1:30 p.m.) You can schedule a tweet up to a year in advance.
Congratulations! You just made your first scheduled tweet using the Twitter Ads manager.
- If you want to access a list of all your scheduled tweets, you can do so by clicking on the “Only Scheduled Tweets” button.
Other Ways to Schedule Tweets
This isn’t the only way you can schedule tweets. There are several scheduler tools for your twitter posts. Another software is Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a well-known scheduling app given its ability to schedule posts across multiple social media platforms (including Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram.) In addition to scheduling posts, you can also manage inboxes across these accounts and gain access to mentions. Also, on the free plan, you are permitted to schedule up to 30 tweets.
A second software you can use to schedule tweets is Buffer, a Twitter scheduling app which has a good free plan for up to three different social media accounts. The benefit of using buffer is their plugin – meaning you can schedule a tweet from within Twitter itself instead of from within Buffer only. However, the schedule limit for Buffer is only ten tweets (on the free plan.)
How to Schedule Tweets that Engage Readers
Ask Questions
Users enjoy the fast-paced Twitter environment where they can share their views and stay up-to-date. So one great tactic to include in your twitter content is a question – where users can become a part of a conversation.
Making users feel like their opinions and ideas matter is a great content strategy as it will push them to click through your profile. One example of this can be a data-driven question (which states a statistic): “Did you know that 39.6% of American adults are obese? If you’re looking to improve your health, [name of health company] is here to help. Register today!” Always try to end your question with a call to action (or CTA.) In this case, it is registering.
Mention Discounts by Percentage
It has been shown by Twitter Business that tweets expressing discounts as percentages instead of dollars tend to generate more clicks. That is because for viewers, reading 30% off seems like much more than $10 off.
Focus on “Free” Opportunity
Pushing audiences to make a purchase is the focus of many marketing programs. But, for some companies the focus is on gathering leads to promote a particular ebook, online course/program, song, etc. For instance, if you are offering a free online course about the music business, you should make that super clear to your viewers and inform them about all the potential benefits, like expanding their industry knowledge.
Be Picky with Hashtags
Make sure you choose hashtags that are relevant for your overall tweet. But, importantly, do not over clutter your Tweet with distracting hashtags that might push viewers away from your call-to-action or simply scroll past your post. Generally, one hashtag per tweet is enough, or two at the most.
Create a Sense of Urgency
When offers are a limited time only, it creates a sense of urgency and pushes your audience to act fast. So remember to give deadlines and remind viewers why they should “register now” or order soon because of a “limited supply!”
What to Do with Scheduled Tweets
Predict a Timely Opportunity
So, you want you to start scheduling tweets on mobile for the following weeks. But what should you post and when? There are many things you can do to discover the ideal posting schedule.
Well, you can consider important dates your business has with regards to the season. For instance, let’s say you’re a fashion brand dropping a seasonal sale for your winter clothing line in two weeks. Or, if you’re running a coffee shop and an exclusive winter drink is back for orders starting next month. A good tweet can say “Taste the winter-themed flavors in our exclusive [insert name of drink – such as ‘Peppermint Hot Chocolate Latte’]” then add an eye capturing photo that will make their taste buds ring!
The advantage here is not only to give yourself more time to get creative and prepare the right content in advance, but also, you won’t have to worry about it once it’s scheduled. You can instead focus on your other tasks.
Consider Various Time Zones
Know your audience. You could be based in the United States, but have a huge following in Dubai. If that’s the case, have a few posts dedicated to their time zones. This means that if you want a post to reach them at noon, you would have to schedule a tweet at 3 a.m. Central Time to get 12 p.m. UAE Time. That’s a huge advantage of scheduled posts – because who would want to wake up at 3 a.m. to post on twitter?
Discover Optimal Times to Tweet
There are a few ways to discover optimal times to tweet. First, you can simply test it out. Send out your tweets at multiple times of day and see which ones work most effectively. Check which ones get the most attraction and focus your timing to be similar to those. It’s also important to note that compared to other social media platforms, Twitter is an app where people post very often (at least five times a day and up to 20.) On the other hand, for Instagram it is recommended to post at least once a day and at most three times a day.
A good general reference for optimal timings on Twitter is HubSpot. HubSpot states that the ideal timings to post fall between 8 and 10 a.m. (before people get to work or school in the morning) and six and nine p.m. (when they leave in the evening). Now if your goals are to increase retweets and click-throughs, you should aim for 12 pm and between five and six p.m.
Remember that people use their twitter feed as a place to read about trending topics (such as political and social news) during their commutes, work breaks, etc. Also, consider your business type as timings vary between B2B and B2C businesses.
Share Links
Twitter is a great social media platform for link building. You probably follow or notice a lot of accounts sharing links to their blog posts, other articles, images, videos, gifs or really any content that would be of interest to their audience. Make sure to always include a description when referencing a link. Use one of the software mentioned above to schedule out tweets with links everyday at a particular time – a great addition to your Twitter marketing strategy.
Why Should You Use Twitter?
There are many benefits to using Twitter for your business. Twitter is an important marketing tool. First, Twitter is the perfect platform to gain customer insights. People are constantly sharing their opinions on certain trends or expressing their moods and currently feelings – essential data for businesses.
Second, it’s a great place to build a personality and voice for your brand in a genuine way. This is often referred to as building a social media persona. One example of a brand who does this is Ben & Jerry’s. While they sell ice cream, they also continually tweet about important political and social issues that have impacted many people’s lives.
These issues are both important to the brand itself and speak to many who believe in the same cause. This type of connection between a brand and consumer is crucial to make, and it is one that takes a lot more effort, time, and consideration than simple generic tweets.
A third reason you should use Twitter is the ease of getting customer feedback and providing customer service. This two way streets makes the lives of customers easier while also providing useful information for companies to improve their products and services.
Hopefully this article has taught you how to schedule tweets on Twitter. If you need more guidance on scheduling Tweets and using Twitter to advertise, SEO Design Chicago offers just Twitter advertising and more! We drive performance and measure results while staying within your budget.
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