Earlier this week, I received a notification about a new follower (via Topify) who focused on the high-tech industry, and provided some interesting tweets about online services and content.
I was just about to follow this person when I noticed they updated nearly 50 times a day. To me, that’s too many, so I decided not to follow them because it would have meant adding a significant amount of noise to my Twitter stream.
It did, however, put the spotlight on an interesting question: how many times should you tweet a day? And is there such thing as too many tweets?
The answer, however, is far from straightforward because people use Twitter in different ways for different purposes. Companies offering news/content may updates more than 30 times a day to highlight new stories, while individuals building personal/digital brands may also be active.
That said, I think the sweet spot for tweets/day is between 10 and 20.
It’s enough to let people “talk” a lot without being too verbose. At the same time, it provides followers with a steady flow of content without being overwhelming.
It’s like going to a party, and meeting new people. Most of the conversations are pleasant and interesting but then you run into the person who talks, talks and talks – while you desperately search for a way to escape.
Of course, the “10 to 20 Rule” is not set in stone but if you’re tweeting more than 20 times a day, you’ve either got too much time on your hands, providing tweets that aren’t interesting (e.g. going to have coffee at Starbucks; stayed up way too late last night, etc.), or just creating noise.
Truth be told, I’ve unfollowed some pretty high-profile people simply because they tweeted so often it became distracting – every time I looked at Twitter, they were sending along an update.
7 Comments
My threshold is much lower. Someone Tweeting 20 times a day is far too chatty for my liking, and I'll unfollow quickly. I'd ask that people not share every though they have — just the ones that I need to know about.
I think 10 a day is a great number.
But this is tricky. Nowadays, many services redirect your activities to your Twitter account (Twitterfeed, a.tinythread.com, Posterous, Friendfeed, Flickr, so on): you click some "likes" in Friendfeed, you share 6 or 7 articles in Google Reader, you update your blog and you join some tinythreads and you are already surpassing this number, AND YOU HAVEN'T EVEN OPENED YOUR TWEETDECK.
This number must be revised, or the number of startups that link their activities to Twitter narrowed down. Heck, once I even got my "likes" in Last.fm sent to Twitter and I didn't even know how I did it!
Good point. This whole stream everything you do online to Twitter has the potential to get completely out of hand.
One more comment, actually:
What your followers consider an appropriate number of tweetsdepends on how many people they're following.
If someone is following 350 people, and I post 20 times a day, my tweets might not monopolize their feed. If they're following 75 people, I will very possibly dominate their feed and become an unwelcome presence.
So the lesson is Know Your Audience.
Thanks for the thoughts. The ideal number depends on your needs/appetite.
Interesting post, in the end, I am a believer that everyone can control their own Twitter experience, and I don't truly analyze or wonder whether I am overtweeting or not (and I tweet a lot!). In the end, I am just being myself on Twitter, I love to connect with the people in my stream and if I clog someone's stream, that person can just unfollow me. Doesn't phase me at all, but again, this is a very interesting post and I enjoyed reading it. Glad I came across it today!
With Twitter tools that allow one to group more relevant followers, I find it easier to hone in on the messages I am looking for instead of the just noise. I agree with many posts that relevant content is going to make me want to follow. Now this comes from a person with around 400 followers and 800 follows. I would assume that changes when you get into the 1000s.
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