Timed Tweeting: Twitter Now Supports Scheduled Posts

On Monday, October 14, Twitter announced a change that will make advertisers’ jobs a little easier: scheduled tweeting. Rather than logging in to post tweets on holidays or at inconvenient hours in order to reach their target audience, advertisers can pen tweets up to a year in advance. Several other websites, such as HootSuite, have offered this service previously, but it’s the first time that Twitter has offered such a platform on its own website.

This change covers both promoted tweets—those sent to users who match the target-audience criteria set by advertisers—and organic tweets that go to all of a brand’s followers. For example, a company like Bortek Industries, which specializes in industrial cleaning rentals, parts, and services, could schedule a promoted tweet targeting only to Twitter accounts of businesses or individuals who they think may be interested in their services. Or, they could opt for a regular tweet to their followers in the hopes of sparking interest the old-fashioned way.

Either way, it’s simple to schedule tweets of both varieties, and even include images hosted right on Twitter. Here’s a step-by-step look at the new procedure, accessible with a pre-existing Twitter account:

• Log into Twitter Ads

• Click the newly added “Creatives” tab, which is located next to the “Campaigns” and “Analytics” tabs at the top

• Click “Tweets,” then “Compose Tweet”

• Type your 140-character-or-less message into the box

• Click the “Scheduling” tab

• Choose the date and time that you want the tweet to appear

• Click “Schedule Tweet”

As previously mentioned, advertisers can schedule tweets up to a year in advance, and they can schedule a new one to appear once every minute, should they so desire. They can also pre-upload images to appear in their tweets, hosted on Twitter instead of an external service. This is an important note for those who upload photos often, as the pic.twitter.com address has been shown to encourage more clicks and engagement from viewers than other third-party image-share links.

Obviously, this change makes Twitter’s internal tools a threat to third-party sites that charge businesses for a similar scheduling service; perhaps the site will see a jump in revenue as businesses start to rely on Twitter’s in-house ad services for all of their tweet-sending needs. This change makes advertisers’ jobs easier, too, as they no longer need the help of other websites to keep their Twitter content fresh and engaging.

This sort of streamlining is par for the course when it comes to Twitter, especially as of late. In August of 2013, the site made another change that could help advertisers who are especially active on the site. Before, responses to tweeted questions would appear with a small “in reply to” link that other viewers could click to get an idea of the conversation they were reading. Now, however, the site automatically links any tweets sent in reply to one another. This means that users can read tweets as a cohesive conversation. This, along with their latest addition of scheduled tweeting, will no doubt aid those who seek to engage with viewers directly.

Adrienne Erin is a social media and internet marketing writer who loves to share the tips she’s picked up over her time spent growing with the industry. She writes regularly for SiteProNews and Search Engine People.