Twitter is one of the few platforms that lets you reach a vast audience quickly. While other platforms have tricky algorithms to navigate, Twitter’s is relatively straightforward. Post a tweet, and any followers that are browsing their feeds can see it immediately. With the right keywords and hashtags, even people who don’t follow you can find your tweet (if you’re looking for specific, older tweets check out our guide on how to see your first tweet).
But Twitter has always been more of a real-time type of platform. If you don’t want to tweet multiple times per day, you might find it challenging to stay relevant on Twitter.
Fortunately, Twitter rolled out a new scheduling feature that makes it easier for users to tweet during the most critical times for their audiences, and it’s effortless and functional.
The Benefits of Scheduling Tweets
Why schedule a tweet in the first place?
It saves you time! Twitter is one of the only social platforms that rewards frequent posting. Tweet sizes are limited to 280 characters, which forces users to tweet the way Twitter intends with quick, to-the-point posts. Many Twitter users tweet multiple times each day and see excellent reach and engagement from their efforts.
But you don’t want to spend all day on Twitter, right? Scheduling a tweet lets you create tweets in bulk to send out at optimal times without flooding your followers’ feeds with 20 posts from you at a time. For example, you might schedule a full day of tweets in the morning but space their posting times throughout the day.
Scheduling also lets you target prime posting times to increase engagement when you can’t be on Twitter to post in real-time. You’ll also get your tweets in front of people in different time zones, ensuring that your full audience gets to interact with your posts, no matter where they’re located.
What Is the Best Way to Schedule a Tweet?
Screenshot via Twitter
Just a few months ago, there was no way to schedule a tweet through Twitter itself. Instead, you needed to use a scheduling tool to do it for you (which you can still do if you’re happy with your current social media scheduling tool). However, Twitter has since boosted its game to let you schedule tweets before you’re ready to post them, right from its web app.
Unfortunately, this feature isn’t yet available on the mobile app, so you’ll need to head to Twitter’s website on your mobile device or computer to use it. Here’s how to do it:
- Log in to your account.
- Start composing your tweet as you usually would.
- Instead of hitting the Tweet button, click the calendar icon.
- Change the day and time you’d like your tweet to post and hit the Confirm button.
If you want to view your scheduled tweets, click the calendar icon, followed by the “Scheduled Tweets” link.
Other Ways to Schedule Tweets
Screenshot via Buffer
There are a couple of other ways to schedule tweets and make your posting schedule that much easier. First, you can use ShareThis share buttons on your website. Click the Twitter share icon on the posts you want to share to Twitter and use Twitter’s scheduling feature when the tweet box shows up. You can also do this to share content from other sites that use ShareThis share buttons.
If you want to schedule tweets from a mobile device, you’ll need to use a social media scheduling tool, like Buffer or Hootsuite. There are plenty of free social media management tools with built-in scheduling features, too.
Best Practices for Scheduling Tweets
The downside of scheduling tweets is that you don’t see the actual tweet until it goes live. By following these tips, you can make sure you tweet looks and behaves the way you want it to once it’s ready to hit Twitter feeds:
- You can’t schedule retweets unless you add text to the tweet. Be sure to add a caption to go along with your retweet if you want to schedule one.
- Consider adding an image, GIF, or video to your tweet text to help your tweets stand out in Twitter feeds.
- Condense your links. A lengthy link takes up unnecessary space and makes a tweet look cluttered. Use a shortening tool, like Bitly, to shorten URLs.
- Add hashtags to boost your impressions and help the right people see your tweets, even if they don’t follow you.
- Know your best times to tweet. This varies depending on your audience, but Twitter users are generally the most active during the workweek, Monday through Friday, between 8 am and 4 pm. You can experiment with different scheduled times for a couple of weeks to see what times tend to bring you the most engagement.
- If you find your old tweets and identify top performers, you may want to set up a schedule to reshare those tweets
Being present on social media is a must for most modern businesses, but that doesn’t mean it has to take over your life. Scheduling tweets is just one simple way that you can streamline your social media tasks.
Now that Twitter has rolled out built-in scheduling capabilities to its platform, you can offer even more value to your readers when you install the Twitter share button on your blog or website. With the Twitter share button, your visitors can share your content on Twitter instantly with a single click or schedule it to post on a specific date and time without ever leaving your website. It couldn’t be simpler, and it’s totally free to use!
