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I schedule tweets so that I don’t annoy everyone else
I recently wrote a guest post entitled To schedule tweets or not to? Two Reasons and one of the comments I received helped me to come to the conclusion that there’s a difference between scheduling tweets and RTs and totally automating your tweets – so I wanted to elaborate on that. The commenter seemed to think I was encouraging people to totally automate the tweeting process and completely abandon the social aspects of social media or at least that’s what I got from this comment:
“Whats the point of social media? Being social, having dialogue… Whats the point of sending out scheduled tweets? Getting your name out there in front of people and having monologue. You can’t automate engagement with people and do it with sincerity. If the whole point of being on twitter is to create new relationships then you’re going about it the wrong way through automation.
Now don’t get me wrong – there isn’t anything wrong with having one or two pre-set tweets here and there. But when your entire existence relies on twitter feeds and scheduled tweets you’re doing more damage than good. What do you do when someone sees your tweet and tries to strike up conversation about that link? Maybe tweet at them 18hrs later?
Yeah that looks great…” – Ross Simmonds
While yes, this may cause a delay in the response, the beauty of social media to me is having the ability to engage and respond at a time that’s convenient. I don’t mind getting a response from someone a day later, the point to me is that they respond. Of course, there are times when people are expecting to hear from you right away and that sometimes a timely response is necessary, so I’ll admit that there is a valid point to this.
That’s why it’s important to schedule and not simply automate your tweets. There’s a critical difference.
Here’s the difference:
Automated tweets are just automation in the absence of human engagement. Automated tweets are those that repeat at regular intervals, with no interaction, mentions, replies or anything else in between.
Scheduled tweets, are different. I schedule many of my tweets and even RTs in order to spread them out. I’m still present and active online, but I use the schedule feature as a courtesy to my followers so they don’t feel as if I’m dumping tweet after tweet into their stream. I also try to spread things out so that my followers who aren’t presently online might also see my tweets at a later time and also when I’m unavailable. This doesn’t mean I’m not socially interacting and engaging people. It doesn’t mean I’m not checking in regularly.
Whenever there’s something pressing, I respond right away. If it seems like it can wait until later I’ll schedule it.
Also scheduling doesn’t mean I’m scheduling it hours later or way ahead into the future. Sometimes I schedule things to tweet 5 or 10 minutes later to allow someone else an opportunity to tweet. I don’t want to overexpose myself since I’m quite annoyed when I see others tweeting several tweets in a row, especially when they are the @mention lists such as the #Follow Friday lists. I like to allow some time to lapse between them.
So I use a combination of live and scheduled tweets and retweets and sometimes even @mentions. I don’t know maybe I’m just a weirdo for doing this. What do you think about this? What are your tweet scheduling habits? Are you a scheduler or an automator? can you see the value in scheduling some tweets or does it totally defeat the social media purpose?
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Great post – I really enjoy your writing style and ability to keep me reading. It might have something to do with the fact that this topic all started because of our conversation, but either way I enjoyed the read.
I see your point but am still against the idea of scheduling tweets throughout the day. You may use them this way but that doesn’t mean everyone else does. I’m beginning to believe twitter is like the real-world with different people going at it in all different ways. Some people are lazy, some people work hard, some people don’t get it and some people pretend they do. So because of that, I say; do what you want. There will always be people telling you that one way is better than the other but when it comes down to it – we have to look at their intentions. Some peoples intent is to feel special (followers), some peoples intent is to develop community (friends) while others are just looking for a place to let off some steam. Solid post Kiesha – I think this inspired a post of my own.
Hi Ross! Glad to see you here. I must agree that it is the intent behind the tweet that matters. My goal is to be of value to others and to present something to the world that will be a help not a hindrance. I don’t want people to read my post and just run with it thinking it’s okay to just post a bunch of links and leave.
I’m glad this post inspired you – that’s what I’m talking about! Your comments definitely inspired me. And inspiration is of great value to me because it’s so hard to come by in this world.
I’ll be looking out for whatever you come up with.
Well said, Ross. While I agree that there is no right or wrong way to go about using Twitter, I, too, feel that automation and scheduling tweets defeat the purpose of the social aspect of the network.
Twitter, to me personally, is about sharing content now.
When a friend tweets about a post they just read, I feel excited to check it out because it becomes a shared experience — I can read the post, leave a comment, and tweet back what I thought.
Scheduling and automation widens the gap between that shared experience, which might not matter to some, but to me that’s what it’s all about — the power of discovering in the now.
Additionally, if everyone had a set amount of people they were following, the motive to use scheduling as a way to avoid hogging the stream might be understandable, but because some people follow ten people while others follow thousands, I don’t think this really applies.
Also, I’d like to hear what everyone thinks about sharing your own content vs sharing related content — I feel there’s a line between selectively sharing something valuable with your followers and sharing everything you read just to get build your profile or brand in that niche.
What do you guys think?
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Hi Chris,
I realize in the wrong hands, scheduling can be taken advantage of. And while the now aspect of sharing is exciting, scheduling RTs for a later time, in my opinion extends the life of those tweets. It allows what my friends are sharing an opportunity to be seen by readers that might have missed it. For that reason I continue to schedule RTs and while I’ll admit, some days I may schedule more tweets than others, it’s also not something I do every single day.
It’s a useful tool that when used wisely and carefully can enhance Twitter for everyone.
Hi Kiesha,
Every one of my tweets is entered manually. Twitter is a primary social engagement tool for me. I like to keep it open throughout the day in order to engage.
As for the scheduled – automated argument it depends what you’re using twitter for. I personally like to do it manually. Seeing the same tweets each day from an automated system doesn’t sit well with me. I’m against automating any process. It’s not the number of things which you do but the way that you do them which brings results. So scheduling tweets is more desirable than automated tweets since you’re putting a personal touch on your tweets.
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Scheduling tweets with the right motives simply prevents us from being annoying – who could knock that? Great thoughts!
In theory, I agree.
But how many people scheduling their tweets actually shed a sliver of their personal voice?
There are all different types of tweeters so I don’t want to group anyone somewhere they don’t belong, but it seems a lot of people using scheduling are merely content cannons — the people who just re-tweet everything they read in order to make an appearance throughout the stream.
The more content the better, but without including your own voice or personal commentary on the content you’re reading you risk losing followers.
Christopher // ScriptXRay.com´s last blog ..Demystifying Story Structure
Now commentary is definitely a place where I can improve, yet I quickly grow tired of trying to fit something meaningful in such a small space – and in my opinion, “great read” is just about as useful as not saying anything at all. I actually don’t mind – actually to be honest, I prefer to see more links – it exposes me to more content. Once I get there, I can make my decision whether it’s worth retweeting or not.
I also enjoy inspirational sayings, but they don’t have as lasting of an effect as a link to a great blog that I could subscribe to.
But I guess we all have our own tweeting styles and habits and that’s excellent because it creates an awesome variety to choose from.
True — Twitter makes it challenging to write much, but I guess I mean commentary in the general sense; about what’s going on in life.
I think there needs to be a balance of some sort between it all — personal reflections, rants, valuable content, and questions.
Personally, I enjoy your inspirational quotes and original tweets way more than the links to other content — partly because I’m interested in getting to know your voice and what you’re all about and partly because I’m interested in your work more than the work of 15 other bloggers.
I have a feeling a few posts throughout the day pointing followers to cool content will prove to be more powerful than 15 posts to other blogs — less is more in a way, you know?
To each their own, but I’m just saying as your reader, I’d love to see more casual tweets about what’s going on day to day — If other readers are like me, they’re interested in how you manage to post every day despite the challenges we all face, what pet peeves you have, where your inspiration for a post comes from, etc.
When it comes to personal twitter accounts like yours and mine (@christopherR2D2), I just think people are expecting more than what a business account my tweet — all work and no play.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if someone hogged my stream with their personal tweets, while I probably would mind if their tweets were merely links to content I don’t really care about at the moment.
There’s definitely value in providing links to cool content, but I feel like that’s what Digg or Delicious is for — Twitter is about voice.
Your voice.
Great post and discussion — I look forward to everyone’s future tweets!
Christopher // ScriptXRay.com´s last blog ..Demystifying Story Structure
Well I’m all for having an open mind and always willing to improve, so I will definitely make more of an effort to add my voice to the twitter stream – now that I know that there’s one more person who cares it’ll definitely be worth the effort.
I’m making no promises to stop scheduling tweets, though :) Sorry!
Thanks for all of your awesome input today – thanks for getting my brain muscles pumping!
Automated Tweets is the way to go for sure. I don’t want to annoy my followers on Twitter and this is the perfect way to go. Do you use socialoomph?
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I just started scheduling tweets and I haven’t got a definitive opinion one way or another yet. I am with you on replying to tweets, etc. That is what makes social media social! :)
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Personally I have several twitter accounts and I use them based on what my motive is for the particular account.
I’ll set up automated tweets when I’m simply trying to simply lead people to a particular website.
For my personal account however I like to be on when I tweet in case someone wants to interact with me at the same time. If you do go the automation route however then you definitely have to know how to work it so that people don’t mass unfollow you for posting tweetspam.
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