How Many Times Should You Tweet a Blog Post? Experts Weigh in…

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To tweet or not to tweet (three times)…

A few days ago, I tweeted these two tweets via my Twitter profile (try saying that when you’ve had a drink or two!):

Here’s a recent example:

I was curious to know if people thought tweeting about a new blog post three times (instead of just twice) would be considered overdoing it. On the one hand, it’s very easy to miss a tweet in a busy stream, but on the other hand, if someone does happen to see it three times, is it going to annoy them?

The responses I got back were pretty surprising, which you can see in the Storify Wakelet story below…

Note: One of the first responses (near the top) has a swearword in it. You can always count on @rhyswynne to lower the tone… 😉 So just be advised that there’s a slight NSFW warning attached to this!

In summary…

So to summarise some of the responses:

    Counting apples image

  • No, three tweets per blog post isn’t considered too much (spread across three days)… Some people do 3-4 tweets just in one day!
  • Tweeting for different time-zones is a good idea if you have followers in different countries.
  • Use different angles, e.g.
    “lots of comments on this post: [link]”
    or
    “check out this comment, do you agree/disagree? [link]”
  • A WordPress plugin called Tweet Old Post (WP.org link) can be used to automatically schedule follow-up tweets for you.
  • Similarly, Followerwonk can come in handy when evaluating what time of day your followers are active on Twitter, so you know when’s best to tweet your new post. I always assumed that lunchtimes GMT/BST were best for me, but according to Followerwonk, 4-5pm is when most of my followers are active and online on Twitter, so from now on I’ll probably tweet around then instead!

Got anything to add? Leave a comment below!

[One-two-three apples image credit: Jonathan Cohen]

5 Comments

  • Emma

    September 10, 2013 at 3:14 pm Reply

    Ah, I liked this – it was a good conversation starter for one.

    I have, in the past, unfollowed people because they seem like “auto tweet post bots”. This occurs when their auto-tweeting takes up more of their feed than real tweeting.

    But I would never unfollow you because I get a lot of actual interactions with you on Twitter, even if there’s the occasional “read my post that I wrote the other day” (usually it’s because I’ve already read it and think “why do I need to see that again…”).

    I think though, I’m a very non-typical Twitter user. I read all the Tweets because I don’t follow that many people, so I don’t need to be updated 5 times about a post I read once.

    However – I understand that a lot of people with a large follower base might get their posts drowned and hence this is the case.

    Good post.

    • Steve

      September 11, 2013 at 8:00 am Reply

      Hi Emma, that’s a good point… I too try and see all the tweets I can in my feed, but a friend of mine (he’s actually one of the people in the Storify above) has previously told me that he likes to follow 1-2,000 people and likes to ‘dive in’ now and again, rather than try and keep on top of it all. For someone like him, it’s crucial to tweet more than once, as chances he has much less of a chance of seeing it.

  • Adeel Sami

    September 17, 2013 at 8:58 am Reply

    Steve, that’s the good one! What I liked is the way to mention the comment with link so that it gets attention of the reader and makes him/her curious to click to read about what actually the comment was about. But, will this style be continued for 3-4 times because repetition may annoy followers, right ?

    • Steve

      September 17, 2013 at 9:48 am Reply

      Hi Adeel, thanks for leaving a comment! 🙂 Yes, I wouldn’t recommend doing it too often personally, although some of the people in the Storify say that they do 4 times in one day, or even up to 10 times altogether. I think I’ll stick to 2-3 for now (and maybe RT someone else if they share it, too)!

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