How to schedule Tweets and drive better engagement

Twitter sees an average of 500 million Tweets every day, meaning there’s no shortage of highly active and engaged users on the platform. But it also means there’s competition for eyes on Tweets, and you’ll need to be strategic when you post.

That’s where Twitter scheduling comes in.

Scheduling Tweets ensures your content is posted when your followers are more likely active and can significantly improve your Twitter engagement and reach.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the importance of scheduling Twitter posts and why it makes sense for your Twitter marketing strategy. And to help you get started, you’ll also learn how to schedule Tweets using Sprout Social’s scheduling tool.

Why should you schedule Tweets?

Why should you care about scheduling posts on Twitter and why does it matter for your business? Let’s break down why Twitter scheduling makes sense for businesses.

1. Better organization and productivity

Scheduling Twitter posts ahead of time allows you to organize your Twitter publishing efforts so you can remain productive during the day. For example, if you have to Tweet multiple times throughout the day, scheduling Tweets means you can continue your daily tasks without interruption.

With Twitter scheduling, you can dedicate a couple of hours each day or week to schedule your content in batches. This keeps you and your content organized well ahead of time and helps maintain productivity.

2. Maintaining your posting schedule

Planning and scheduling your Tweets can be useful if you’re trying to establish or maintain a content calendar. By planning out Tweets for the week or weeks ahead, you have the opportunity to create a consistent posting schedule where there’s no risk of forgetting to send out a Tweet at a certain time. So feel comfortable knowing you can publish your Tweets based on your pre-planned schedule, whether it’s around a specific campaign or seasonal content.

3. Consistent cross-platform messaging

If your social media strategy involves sharing a similar message across all your social media accounts, Twitter scheduling simplifies the process. This also makes sense when you’re managing multiple Twitter accounts. You can schedule your posts to go out at the same time across all social media channels to maintain consistency.

4. Running tests on optimal post timing

Schedule Tweets to go out at different times throughout the week to find out which timing works best for your audience. You might be surprised to discover when your audience is most active. Using Sprout’s research on the best time to post is a good starting point but can vary based on your industry on audience.

5. Geo-targeting Tweets

Scheduling Twitter posts also makes sense when you have to target audiences in specific locations. You can schedule your Tweets to go out at the optimal send times for different time zones. This improves your chances of reaching the right audience at the right time no matter where they live. This goes back to finding the best time to Tweet according to your audience, and testing on social media can help.

How to schedule Tweets on Twitter

As of May 2020, users are now able to schedule Tweets through the Ads section of the Twitter dashboard. Scheduled Tweets can either be organic or Promoted, but users will need a Twitter Ads account to use the scheduler.

1. Log in to your Twitter Ads account and select the Tweets option under the Creatives tab.
2. Then select New Tweet to open the Tweet Composer. The Tweet Composer is where you’ll be able to select if this is a Promoted or organic Tweet.
3. Compose your Tweet, and then select the drop-down menu right next to the Tweet button.
4. Select  the date and time when you want your Tweet to go live under the Scheduling tab.
5. Click Tweet to finish the scheduling.

How to schedule Tweets using Sprout Social

The native Twitter scheduler is a great tool for the platform, but if you have to manage brand accounts across various social media platforms, it’s nice to have something more comprehensive. Sprout is a robust social media publishing platform that you can use you to schedule your posts for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Using Sprout, you can schedule your social posts weeks and months ahead. And since you can visualize your posting calendar, it’s much easier to work on campaigns and promotions. The tool even lets you schedule recurring posts to simplify your planning and productivity.

Here’s how you can use Sprout to schedule Tweets:

Step 1. From the Publishing dashboard, click on the blue Compose button at the top right-hand corner of the screen. This will open up a New Post window, where you can compose your Tweet.

Step 2. If you’ve connected multiple Twitter profiles to Sprout, choose the Twitter profile where you want to publish your Tweet from the Profile Picker drop-down menu at the top. Then compose your Tweet and include images and videos as well.

Step 3. Under your post in the Composition window, you’ll find a When to post option next to a drop-down menu. Click on the drop-down button and select Specific date and time.

Step 4. Select the date(s) and time when you want your Tweet to publish. If you’re not too sure about what time to schedule your posts, select Use Optimal Times and Sprout will provide you with options for the best time to post based on your Tweet performance history. You can also select multiple dates and times for recurring Tweets.

Step 5. Click Schedule. And that’s it! You’ve scheduled your Tweet using Sprout.

Viewing your scheduled Tweets in Sprout

After scheduling your Tweets using Sprout, you can view them in the Publishing Calendar. Here, you can view your scheduled posts in a list-format in order of how they’ll go out.

Or use the week view to visualize the posts you’ve scheduled throughout that particular week. A weekly view also helps you visualize the post volume for the current and upcoming week, and in what order posts will be published, in case you want to make some adjustments.

From here, you can easily switch things around by moving the cards. For instance, if you see that you have too many Tweets going out on Tuesday, you can drag one of the cards to schedule the post for another day of the week.

If you select the month view, you can visualize your publishing schedule for the entire month. You’ll be able to see how many posts you have scheduled on a certain day and on which platform. This is a great way to review your monthly publishing calendar and find out if there’s any need for adjustments, especially based around marketing campaigns or holidays.

Using the Asset Library to save time with Twitter scheduling

You can save more time scheduling Twitter posts by using Sprout’s Asset Library. Save images and videos to the Asset Library. Then when scheduling your Tweets, you can quickly select the content you want to use in seconds.

In addition to media files, you can also add saved responses to the Asset Library. This helps you save time when you have to quickly respond to FAQs and social mentions.

Collaborating using Sprout 

Sprout’s Asset Library also makes collaboration with coworkers and teammates more seamless. This can be particularly helpful if you have a team of people managing different aspects of your social media accounts. From customer support specialists, graphic designers and social media managers, the Sprout platforms allows for collaboration across the board. For example, you can have some team members uploading content to the Asset Library for later use. And others can easily select the content they want from the Asset Library and use it in their posts.

With so many components for collaboration, having an internal social media approval process may be necessary. Thankfully, you can set up an approval workflow in Sprout’s platform. Here, you can leave internal comments, tag users to notify, make changes to the Tweet and approve the post for scheduling.

Get to scheduling

When done right, Twitter scheduling can be a smart and efficient way to manage your social media efforts. And Sprout gives you a robust set of publishing tools to help you execute that more effectively. In addition to just scheduling your Tweets, you can use Sprout tools to visualize your content calendar, upload assets for later use and seamlessly collaborate with your team.

If you’d like to try scheduling your Twitter posts, along with your other social profiles, sign up for a demo.

This post How to schedule Tweets and drive better engagement originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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