How Many Tweets Is Enough?

Feb 10, 2012
Lara-Jane Kokolski

Social Networking - ddpavumba

This article contains a few tips on how to keep on top of your social media without going into overdrive.

It’s a fine balance between falling off the Twitter radar all together and being there so much that everyone else falls off the radar. People start to unfollow you so they can get some peace and quiet.

An optimum amount to tweet during a day/week

How many tweets should I be putting out in a day? This is a very valid question and one that everyone on Twitter is yearning to have an answer to. It’s not a simple answer however. My initial (short) answer is; a basic of 5 or 6 spread throughout the day would maintain your presence allowing for RTs and such on top of that. This is a great average to live by. If you try to aim for this, spread evenly through out the day then you should be able to catch plenty of people as they log in at different times. This is better than doing all five in the morning before breakfast and being silent for the rest of the day.

The pit falls

On the other hand you could go too far. I’m not talking about having a conversation with a few people and whoops you’ve tweeted twenty times today. I’m talking about doing a lot of tweets at once in a big long block that fills the feed of other people or tweeting the same thing throughout the day without a break.

Guidelines to help you out

Keep it relevant. If it’s about you, your business or your day then tell people about it. But don’t start telling people you’re out of milk.
Space it out. Not everyone is online when you are so try to space things out to catch others when they do log in (dashboards alike HootSuite are great for this).
Don’t be repetitive. Unless it’s really urgent like a warning or the end of a competition don’t repeat yourself too much, it gets boring very quickly.
Be a human being. If you want to have a conversation, have a conversation. It shows that you are a person and not a machine.

Most importantly, do what feels right for you. If you are struggling to find something to say or you just can’t find the right thing to re-tweet, leave it. Come back another time once inspiration has struck. If you force it, it’s likely to be either boring or irrelevant. Also real content comes across better to your audience.