You know the score…you have a great post that you have been meticulously writing for the last couple of days and you think that it is so amazing that once you tweet it out there is every chance that people will go wild and RT it about a hundred times except when you do tweet the link it goes totally unnoticed. There is however some science to when you tweet your links though and these dos and dont’s might just help you get your brilliant link noticed…
Good Times To Tweet
Early in the morning. People tend to open their RSS readers, twitter and online publications before they start real work. With most people starting work at 9 you can expect a good response.
Around Lunchtime. There is usually a bit of a lull at lunchtime in most people’s work flow as they start to anticipate a break coming and indeed many people will elect to have their lunch at the desk to check Facebook and Twitter
16.30 Most people will start winding down from this time onwards and might start firing up their twitter client a little more often than usual and reading those interesting links before they head off home.
Stories or events. If you can possibly make your post relate to an event or incident that you know is going to happen tweet your link with the relevant hashtag during the event.
After 9.30 All the kids are in bed and soaps have been watched and people are back in from eating out. Laptops will be fired up and although not as many people are online you will get a lot more click throughs as there won’t be as much content about and you have a more dedicated audience.
Bad Times To Tweet
During the commute Anytime between 8 and 9 in the morning or 5 and 7 in the evening is a bit of a disaster as it is the one time that nearly everybody is away from their computer and you tweet will get totally lost by the time peeople get back to their computer.
During Events or meetups If there is a popular event being discussed such as a conference or TV show it doesn’t matter how interesting your tweet is as people will just ignore it to or worse still filter it out as they are watching a specific hashtag.
During the night This one doesn’t really need further explanation
When Twitter is Down You only get one shot at tweeting your link (unless you have multiple accounts) and as Twitter will be down or going slow at least once a day make sure that the service is still up and running before you impart your little bit of wisdom with the world.
At the weekend This same principle pretty much applies to most thing on the internet including blogging as people leave their connections and head off and do things in the real world.
Ultimately it all boils down to the content and how good your links are if people are going to click on your links but if you follow some of the above pointers you might give yourself a better chance!
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I think you got it all wrong about the commute for those using public transport. I catch up on all my RSS and Twitter feeds on the bus in the morning and again in the evening. With the advancement and greater adoption of smart phones, I guess the commute time will become even more important. I think this too will have an important implication for bloggers and twitterers – any call to action will need to bear in mind the potential locations of the readers – that is, they will not always be in front of their computer ( as assumed by the OP here for example).
Yeah that is a really good point about people using their phones to catch content while commuting. I would say in a couple of years it could be the best time for traffic as start phones kick in a lot more. Look around on the bus or train though and very few people are on the internet yet but it is coming for sure!
…and if your followers are spread across multiple time zones (Ireland, US East Coast, US West Coast etc), then you’ll want to factor that in too.
I agree with Daily Spud – I got a lot of retweets from my twitter followrs in the US who are most active during our sleeping hours.
[...] Is there a best time to tweet? Many studies have shown that the lunch break, 11-1, is the best time to ensure that your Tweets are read. Here are a few links to Twitter time studies: “Twitter study reveals interesting stats about usage“, “4:01, The Best Time To Tweet” and “Good and bad times to tweet“. [...]
[...] Is there a best time to tweet? Many studies have shown that the lunch break, 11-1, is the best time to ensure that your Tweets are read. Here are a few links to Twitter time studies: “Twitter study reveals interesting stats about usage“, “4:01, The Best Time To Tweet” and “Good and bad times to tweet“. [...]
Agreed with Declan… Nowadays people are very efficient esp those with a smartphone. The best time to check on twitter or RSS is when we are commuting. And you have to consider that your tweets may reached out to the audience from a different timezone…So i don’t really agree that night time is a bad time to tweet.