You work hard to create engaging and interesting Twitter posts, so why not develop a strategy for tweeting at optimal times? Your goal for tweeting should always be to get likes and retweets by your followers. This allows for even more Twitter users to read your tweets, engage with you, and learn about your brand.
It’s important to consider a variety of factors when deciding on when to tweet. For one, you need to know your target audience to ensure that the right people will be reading your tweets. If you are located on the East Coast and want to engage with Twitter users on the West Coast, then you will have to adjust the times at which you tweet. The same applies to brands with a global reach. Twitter is global and your tweets can be seen at any time, from any corner of the world. Adjust your times according to the your targets’ time zone for the best results.
There are a variety of different schools regarding the best times to tweet. If your tweets often include links to other content, then the research done by bit.ly should serve as your guide to tweeting. According to their study, posting in the afternoon and earlier in the week is your best bet when it comes to more clicks on your links. You should avoid posting after 8pm and after 3pm on Fridays and weekends. In general, tweets are most effective when they are sent out Monday through Thursday between 1pm and 3pm. Note that this isn’t when Twitter has the most traffic (between 9am and 3pm), because you do not necessarily want to compete with other tweets.
Deciphering the best times to tweet your brand’s content may require some research. To discover what works best for your brand, you’ll have to tweet and learn from trial and error. Monitor which tweets receive reactions from other users–like retweets or replies–and note the times these tweets were sent.
Of course there are other ways to determine the optimal times for tweeting. Automated services can help you setup your tweets for maximum impact. Hootsuite’s AutoSchedule feature decides what times are most effective for your tweets. There is also Tweriod, which examines your account and analyzes up to 1000 followers to discover what times your most effective tweets were sent.
No matter which method you choose to examine your tweeting methodology, it’s undeniable that different times work better than others.