Tweeting: How Much Is Too Much?

If you are new to Twitter, you may be asking yourself just how much should I be tweeting?  How many tweets per day are enough for me to engage with my audience, without going overboard?

Tweeting Three Times a Day is OK

I know what you’re thinking, “Three times a day? Isn’t that too much?”  The answer is no; it could be just the right amount.  “But,” you say, “If I sent out three emails a day to my audience, that would be crazy!”  That’s true – three emails per day is too much from a company.  But we’re talking Twitter here, not emails.  And you have to think of Twitter as a type of broadcaster.

The Difference Between Emails and Twitter

Have you ever agreed to be on a retailer’s mailing list, and then instantly regretted it once you started getting a bunch of emails every day from them?  We feel this way because receiving too many emails tends to get irritating fast.  They clog up our inbox, it isn’t the right frequency for the medium and this can make us feel inundated.

Twitter, on the other hand, doesn’t work like that – it’s like a broadcaster, an announcer that gives us short, 140-character updates.  We go on Twitter expecting to see news and announcements from the people and companies that we’re following.  We dip in, we dip out.  We don’t stare at Twitter for hours at a time.  Neither do the people who follow us.  So frequent (relevant, helpful)  tweets are just fine. It’s not irritating when a company tweets (relevant and helpful information) multiple times per day – in fact, it’s recommended.

6,000 Tweets per Second

Just to put some context around “tweeting too much” this number might amaze you.  “Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter,  which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year.” Learn more about Twitter usage statistics here.

The More You Tweet, The More You Engage

Being on Twitter is all about engaging with your audience.  And the more (helpful, relevant) tweets you send out, the more opportunities you have to do just that.  If you’re sharing good content, that is relevant and helpful to your audience, you’ll tend to get more RTs, favorites and replies. These are all opportunities to start conversations with your followers – the first step in getting to know them.

If you need further proof, many online sources recommend tweeting 3-5 times per day.  Check out what Buffer has to say about this topic.  A key idea in the article is to view your schedule of tweets as an experiment, and to be comfortable with and open to iterating based on what your analytics say.

The Recommended Frequency of Posting on Social Media

Just like Twitter, other types of social media have a recommended frequency of posts.  Generally, it’s recommended for a business to post twice a day on Facebook – more posts than that, and the likes and comments will decrease.  LinkedIn’s recommended posting frequency is once per business day.  This makes sense, given that LinkedIn users are busy professionals that use the service during work hours.

Do keep in mind that the world is a 24hr place and not all your connections, friends and followers are in your time zone.This is something to considerif you decide to just narrow your window of postings to the business hours in your time zone.

Nimble Quotes can help you with content to post on Twitter no matter how many times per day you choose to tweet. Select from 1-8 thought-provoking quotes per day that are automatically tweeted from your Twitter account to supplement your other content.  Check out Nimble Quotes in action on @jenkellyjen or @newimarketing.  You can also click here to try us out for a 30-day free trial.  After your trial is over, it costs about $1/day or about $1/week to continue. Not ready to try us out just yet?  Sign up for our newsletter instead.