By John Foley, Jr., Chief Executive/Marketing Officer at Grow Socially
Much like any other marketing campaign, Twitter shares one critical ideology—maximum exposure. When you tweet, are as many people seeing it as possible? If we put in the effort to carefully craft influential and noticeable tweets, we certainly would want to make sure they are being sent out at the times of day that will have the most impact.
A blog post on The Social Media Guide says the best time to tweet, as a general rule, is 9:00 a.m. Pacific time. This is because west coast workers are just arriving, east coast workers are on lunch break, and the work day is ending in Europe, specifically London. If you have that much reach, this certainly sounds like an effective time to tweet.
Of course, there are many other theories, studies, and statistics on this topic. For example, this graph posted by Fast Company indicates the best time to be retweeted is at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. It may be worth taking the time to review tools such as WhenToTweet.com for possible suggestions as to when you personally should be tweeting.
Social media guru and author Guy Kawasaki has also had many things to say on this subject. Here’s one quote: “Try this experiment. Take your most interesting tweets (as measured by how many people retweet them, perhaps) and post them again three times, eight to twelve hours apart. I used to think people would complain about repeating tweets, but I’ve never had a complaint. My theory is that the volume of tweets is so high, and most people check in at about the same time every day, so people don’t notice repeat tweets.”
Mediabistro.com offers another perspective on the subject. “Of course, often this stuff is more art than science, and you could argue that it’s more important having the right people reading your content, inasmuch as influencers and power retweeters, and they might be active at a completely different time.”
If you thoughtfully select who you follow on Twitter, then that may alleviate some of the stress of this notion. If you follow professionals and influential personalities, then someone of value may see your tweet no matter what time of day it is.
Take note of when people reply to your tweets and when you are retweeted, and take these figures into account when you are planning out your tweeting schedule. You may want to save certain tweets for these certain times, depending on how much you want it to be seen. A consistent and steady Twitter stream is always your best bet for reaching the biggest audience, but it might work to your benefit if you know when your audience is most engaged.
