For several years, savvy bloggers have used the scheduling features of blog software to write posts in advance and have them published in the future (see How to Schedule Blog Posts). What about tweets? Should you schedule those as well?

Should You Schedule Tweets?

While scheduling blog posts is universally seen as a good practice, there is a bit of disagreement amongst some social media users about the practice of scheduling tweets. The mechanics are similar (write a tweet and schedule it for later – see below for specifics) but some feel that Twitter is more personal and more conversational; some feel that scheduling a future tweet removes the personal angle and isn’t genuine.

On the other hand, since Twitter is a transitory medium, if someone doesn’t happen to see your tweet because they’re not online when you post it, they probably won’t see it at all. A couple months ago I asked the question if it made sense to post blog links multiple times on Twitter and talked about how posting a link a few times makes sense to reach different Twitter audiences depending on the time of day (or even the day of the week). If we’re going to tweet something for a certain time, doesn’t it make sense to use a service to automate that tweet?

I think that using scheduled tweets as one part of your social marketing toolbox makes sense. I still post nearly all of my tweets manually, but I’ve started using a scheduler to tweets links for things at times of day when I might not be close to my computer (or I might forget). As long as you don’t start relying on scheduled tweets as your main method of tweeting, readers should find the tweets useful and not overwhelming.

How to Schedule Tweets

My favorite way to schedule tweets is with the scheduler now available in the new version of TweetDeck. It’s darned simple. Just type out your tweet, but instead of clicking on the “Send” button, click on the button with a small clock icon:

Enter the time to send the tweet, and click “Set Time.” That’s it. At the given hour, your tweet will be posted just as if you’d done it manually via TweetDeck.

I do want to note that a few folks have reported issues with the new scheduling feature of TweetDeck… it has worked fine for me and I’m not sure if the problems are very widespread but at least one Social Photo Talk reader has expressed concerns.

Don’t use TweetDeck? I know that HootSuite offers this same functionality, and there’s a standalone scheduled tweet service called Twuffer.

Do you Schedule? What Do You Think?

What’s your take on this? Do you schedule tweets? Think it’s a good idea? Think it’s too impersonal?

Photo by ericskiff, used under Creative Commons licensing

Schedule Your Tweets? Should You? How To? is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Have something on your mind about social media as a photographer?

Want to talk about some great service or tool? Have you found an effective way to reach folks with your photography?

I’d love to have you write a guest post for Social Photo Talk. Your article will be seen by our audience and it’ll provide a gateway for some new people to check out your online presence as well.

Find out more about guest posting here.

What Do You Have to Say? is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

I know a whole lot more people than I’ve met.

Watch this video and learn more about what I mean…

Have you had a similar situation?

Getting to Know People via Social Media Before Face-to-Face Situations is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

What’s the social media thing that you know you should do, but aren’t? Why?

This Really Short Blog Post is Waiting for Your Answer is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

I had an interesting experience last night where I almost left a blog comment (but didn’t). Here’s a short video I made to discuss what happened… I’d love to hear your reactions or thoughts if you’ve had a similar situation:

What do you think?

I Almost Left a Blog Comment is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Subscribe via iTunes: – this link will launch iTunes for easy subscription

Here’s the slightly-delayed episode ten of the Social Photo Podcast. Hosts Aaron Hockley and Lyza Danger Gardner talk about entry-level cameras, social media being used for broadcast vs. conversation, and more. This episode is about sixteen minutes long.

Links to Things We Mention

• Which DSLR is Best for a Beginner?
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 Lens
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Canon PowerShot S90IS
• Panasonic DMC-LX3K
• Looks Like Antisocial Media to Me (conversation vs. broacast)

Distribution and Feed

We’re now on iTunes – if you use iTunes, you can subscribe using this link: Subscribe on iTunes

You can also find the podcast as an attachment to the main Social Photo Talk RSS Feed. You should see a player at the bottom of this post if you want to listen directly, or you can grab the Episode 10 mp3 file directly.

Feedback

We’d love to have your feedback – technical, content, or otherwise. Leave a comment here or send mail to podcast@socialphototalk.com – thanks!

Photo by Al Ianni, used under Creative Commons licensing

Social Photo Podcast #10: Conversation vs. Broadcast, Twitter, and Cameras for Beginners is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

One of the cornerstones of my definition of what is social media is that social media features conversation – two-way interaction instead of traditional marketing which often consists of a one-way broadcast. There’s a certain type of social media user that really wants to keep things one-way… I refer to that as antisocial media. Here are some specific examples as photographers:

Blogs Without Comments

Comments are the usual method of enabling the “social” side of blogging, although there are a (small) number of bloggers that feel they don’t want feedback via comments. In the marketing world there’s Seth Godin, and in the photography world we have Scott Bourne at Photofocus. Even though these folks have some good ideas, they’re missing out on the opportunity to participate in a conversation. Yes, there are a variety of reasons why comments can occasionally become a burden (trolls, spam, etc) but modern blog systems contain anti-spam measures and the issue of how to deal with trolls is one which has been discussed to death.

Twitter Without Conversation

Yesterday I linked to an article talking about four styles of marketing on Twitter. Coincidentally, a couple days ago Nicole Young posted Ten Twitter Tips for Photographers. I disagree with her on this one:

4. Minimize your personal conversations. If all I see are random conversations between you and another person (or several for that matter) then it’s the same as being in an elevator listening to another person’s conversation when I have no idea what’s going on. Usually the “ignore” flag goes up and I move on. Replying to people is awesome, but when it goes on-and-on then your tweets are viewed as “diluted”. You want to try and maintain at least a 80/20 ratio … for every ten tweets you do try to keep about eight of them relevant to photography.

I’m in the opposite camp… if someone isn’t having conversations, I won’t follow them. I don’t want to hear someone only talking about themselves and ignoring feedback. Even if it looks like someone is having tons of conversations, you won’t see all of them. Twitter only shows @replies when you follow both parties in the conversation. If you’re following me, and send an @reply to someone that you’re not following, you won’t see that reply. The rest of Nicole’s tips are pretty good, but I think that discouraging conversation is the wrong way to go.

Are you using social media tools as mechanisms for conversation? Or are you perhaps being a bit antisocial in your usage?

Photo by Katie Tegtmeyer, used under Creative Commons licensing

Looks Like Antisocial Media to Me… is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Jason Falls posted an interesting piece yesterday on Social Media Today in which he notes there are Four Styles of Marketing on Twitter ranging from the Conversationalist to the Spammer.

I’d suggest you check out Jason’s piece. I’d argue that if you’re purely in his “Spammer/Broadcast” category that you’re not really participating in social media at all, but rather you’re blasting a one-way message much like traditional PR campaigns.

What’s your Twitter marketing style? Are you engaging in conversation? Tomorrow I’ll have a significant post that challenges those who want to use social media without the inconvenience of having to actually, you know, interact.

Photo by carrotcreative, used under Creative Commons licensing

Marketing on Twitter? Which Style are You? is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

I know I follow the blogs and photo websites of some of our regular commenters, but I know there are a lot of you who have websites and blogs and Twitter accounts that I might not know about.

Tell me about it. Leave a comment on this post full of nothing but shameless self promotion. Give me the URL to your website. Let me know your Twitter @name. If you’d like me to connect on Facebook, drop that URL into a comment as well.

I want to make sure I keep up with the great things you’re doing.

Your URLs, Please… is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

What happens when you tweet too much? A better question would be how much is too much?

Yesterday I got a question from one of my Twitter followers and decided to respond in the form of a blog post. @MarahMedia asked:

How many tweets per day do you think is an acceptable number to be engaging to followers without seeming too “spammy”?

I think there’s a couple questions here. The first is a question of quantity: how many tweets are too many tweets? At what point might your followers seem overwhelmed? I’m not sure there’s a single right answer. I’m a fairly heavy twitter user, and I will often tweet 20-30 times (or more) per day from my @ahockley account. Some of these are original tweets, some are retweets, and some are @replies to specific users. I wouldn’t worry too much about pure quantity… just as there’s no one single way that folks read Twitter, there’s no single quantity of tweets that’s “right” for Twitter.

The second question is how to avoid appearing spammy. In my mind this gets more to a question of how many of your tweets are self-promotion versus how many are general conversation or promoting the work of others. A few months ago I wrote about how to promote your blog on Twitter without being spammy, but a couple quick guidelines would be that your self-promotional tweets should be a minority… and a significant minority. Chris Brogan routinely talks about promoting others’ content twelve times for each one time that one promotes their own content.

Here’s some specific examples of how I’ll engage in self promotion for my photography on Twitter:

• When I post on the blog for my photography services, a link is sent to my Twitter stream. I always schedule blog posts for the morning.
• Later that same day (approximately 6-7 hours later), I’ll tweet a similar link, preceded by “Earlier:” so that folks know it’s something I posted earlier. Because folks won’t read everything posted on Twitter, it means that if you only tweet about something once, a good portion of your followers may never see it.
• I’ll tweet about projects or clients as I work with them, but generally no more than a couple tweets per day during the project or photoshoot.
• I’ll occasionally post a teaser as I get ready to launch a new service or project. My 20art10 project is an example of this – I posted a few teasers before launching the sale of Rural Winter which is the first print in the project.

That’s it. Of my 20+ tweets per day, it’s rare that more than a few will be self-promotional for my photography business. The rest of my tweets are conversational, discussions of everyday life, tweets about photography (but not directly promoting my work), or promotions of others’ work.

What do you think? How much self-promotion is too much self-promotion?

Photo by venetianeye, used under Creative Commons licensing

Can You Tweet Too Much? is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter