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[NETWORKING FOR INTROVERTS] Should You Preschedule Tweets?
With the growing popularity of Buffer and the introduction of HootSuite’s AutoSchedule feature, there has been a lot of brouhaha on the Internet lately about whether you should preschedule tweets.
One egregious example cited by Unmarketing guru Scott Stratten happened when Live Nation Ontario, who organized a Radiohead show in Ontario, Canada, failed to cancel a prescheduled tweet that read, “Help us create a Radiohead photo album from the show! Share your Instagram photos of the show tonight with the hashtag #RadioheadTO.” This tweet went out to @LiveNationON’s 15,000+ followers after the show had been canceled due to a collapsed stage that killed one person and injured three others. Followers appropriately responded with outrage.
More recently, author @KristenLambTX, who started the hashtag #MyWANA, announced that she planned to block and report all automated tweets using the #MyWANA hashtag. The reason? She feels that the #MyWANA conversation has become littered with spam created by bots. By "spam," she means all links, not just ads for Viagara, and by "bots" she means people like you and me who preschedule tweets, not just robots.
This got me thinking: Is it wrong to preschedule tweets? When is it okay to preschedule tweets? Here are my thoughts:
Twitter is a giant chat room. You wouldn’t go into a chat room, write one line and then log off, would you? You wouldn’t chat someone through Facebook or iChat or GChat and then log off, would you? Of course not. That would be rude. If your goal on Twitter is to have a conversation (and it should be, most of the time), then you shouldn’t preschedule tweets. Because when people respond, you won’t be there to continue the conversation. On the other hand, if your goal is to broadcast information (which it can be, some of the time), you don’t necessarily have to be online. My own Twitter use consists of about 75% live tweets and 25% prescheduled tweets.
Why do I preschedule tweets at all? I have two small children, so I can’t be online all the time. I log on every couple of days, catch up on my blog and article reading, and then tweet out my favorites, which frequently consist of more than ten links. By the fifth or sixth, I worry that A) I’m annoying people and B) Only a small percentage of my followers are going to see all the wonderful articles I have to share because, well, it’s 2 a.m. So I preschedule a few for the following day.
Harmless enough, right? Not in the eyes of Twitter purists who believe that prescheduling tweets is akin to rolling up your mattress so it looks like you’re in bed when really you’ve snuck out the bedroom window to meet your friend Joey at the cemetery to drink wine coolers.
Prescheduling tweets, like prayer, like vegetarianism, like your political party affiliation, is a personal choice. Be aware of the pros and cons of each side. Then preschedule responsibly, taking care to cancel prescheduled tweets that are no longer appropriate and to avoid excessive prescheduling. Like all good things, prescheduled tweeting should be practiced in moderation.
What are your thoughts on prescheduled tweets? Are you for or against? Why?
Views: 399
Tags: AutoSchedule, AutoScheduled, Buffer, Meghan, Social, Twitter, Ward, Writerland, media, networking, More…
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Comment by Jobi Harris on August 9, 2012 at 11:48am -
I don't preschedule tweets because I am not that organized. I like to think that when I do get more organized. When I get to the point where it becomes something to think about, I will remember you blog. Thanks!
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Comment by Colette Martin on August 9, 2012 at 11:35am -
Thanks for the post, but I disagree. I think the advantage of these communication channels is that they can be asynchronous. Yes, it's a conversation, but unlike an in-person conversation, the other person doesn't have to be sitting at the other end of their computer or mobile device. That's what makes these technologies so great!
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Comment by Zoe Brooks on August 9, 2012 at 10:52am -
I am in the UK which makes publicizing my book's free days on Kindle a problem as I am up to 8 hrs ahead of the US, so I use prescheduled tweets for the times when I'm in bed. The tweets are mainly for the free ebook retweeting organizers. The trouble is they don't retweet direct messages so all my followers get them. What I do is send a direct message to my followers and apologize in advance.
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Comment by Elena Losasso Dillon on August 9, 2012 at 10:20am -
I have to say I do preschedule but mostly other people's informative stuff. For my own I try to be live and even for prescheduled stuff I always try to engage by iphone. I do need to go offline to write or nothing will get done. I don't like the idea of prescheduling when promoting my own blog. I don't like to bug people constantly with tweets all at once so I thought it would be better to schedule it out. Hmmm I guess I am not a purist then. I love to engage and have conversations however. Maybe I should rethink...
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Comment by Patricia A. McGoldrick on August 9, 2012 at 10:16am -
Timely topic!
The examples of complications point to the need to think twice about prescheduling Tweets.
The appearance of multiple prescheduled tweets in a row is not appealing to me. Prefer to respond to tweets that are not prescheduled.
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Comment by Carol Hedges on August 9, 2012 at 10:03am
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I've just started Tweeting @carolJhedges, (2 weeks in) and I am not a fan of pre-schedued tweeting, as I like the ebb and flow of a chat. I appreciate, however, that for some, busy mums etc it may be a resource, but I think it defeats the immediacy of Twitter. Also I hate the 8 Tweets promoting my book/5star reviews/ etc. If you can't be bothered to chat to me, even minimally, I'm not going to read your blog,review/book. Sorry. I'd take the pre-stuff even further, 85% live 15% pre-scheduled. And I am happy to 'unfollow' anyone who just throws advertising at me. Hopefully, not you!! x Build a relationship, jump into conversations with nice things to say, and people will follow you. THEN they will look at your stuff, chat back.
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Comment by Faith Freewoman on August 9, 2012 at 9:55am -
Brilliant idea! I will read this slavishly, since this is the only part of the writing/publishing process that I truly deeply dread.
Cheers, Faith
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