The Art of Repeating Tweets

This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Dayana Stockdale

With organic reach low, Twitter influencers and big brands alike are recycling old posts. The statistic for how many of your followers actually see your tweets is a hard number to crunch. Some people's followers aren't very "engaged" and others, well they're fanatics. But for most, the number hovers around 2%. For that reason, lots of people repeat their tweets—especially the exciting ones. Remember when your sister got engaged? How many times did she show you the ring? Yup, we've all been there. Thankfully, marketing managers are better cued into eye rolls. The rules of social media are always based on the rules of conversation. If you want to make the most of this tactic (and have it actually pay off), here's what you need to do. Don't be selfish Social media automation should make life easier for you—without making it harder for your audience. The odds of a user getting annoyed by you repeating yourself are correlated to your self-restraint. Reach new time zones You should target new time zones whenever possible and always try to minimize overlap. Have a plan and implement it. If you have a large following around the world, you might choose to recycle every tweet at different intervals, hitting several different time zones. Be selective Depending on your audience, it may be best to only repeat the most note-worthy content. If your audience occasionally notices a repeating update about an award or recent media coverage, they'll be happy for you all over again (as long as you don't overdo it). When you create new campaigns, decide ahead of time how long they should last in your feeds. Sorting them by the expiration date will help you master the art of repeating tweets. Tweak as needed It's important to know when not to repeat your tweets. One such instance is a missed opportunity, and these happen all the time. You used a photo, hashtag, or wording that missed the mark. Afterwards, you found a better photo or hashtag that would have gotten your Bitly more clicks. Or you thought of a snappier way to phrase an update. Redo! This is a great opportunity to tweak your tweet, not repeat it. Give your audience what they want Don't repeat something that wasn't well-received to begin with. That's pure madness. If you're repeating any tweet, there must be a user-focused reason. Deliver something good. If you post a reminder to a weekly offer they love, they'll be grateful. Be sure that you're catering to your audience, not just trying to drive up your tweet count. An excellent marketing manager knows exactly what their audience wants and gives it to them every time. That insight alone must inform every strategy. Make use of campaigns When you put multiple posts in a repeating campaign, you cycle through each post in descending order. Any given campaign can have hundreds of posts or even just a few. You can definitely recycle evergreen content, but be sure each post is spread out. Put hundreds of posts in a campaign with a slow repeat cycle. Every 6 months or so (depending on your industry) you can tweak and rephrase your evergreen posts. For shorter term announcements, think of multiple ways to say the same thing—and put them all in a single campaign. If you have a fantastic sale going on for a couple of weeks, come up with three different announcements to cover all fourteen days. These three tweets will cycle through on repeat, minimizing overlap to your audience. Example: •The sale you follow us for is finally here. 30% off everything. •30% off everything. It's finally happening. Admit it: this is why you follow us. •You follow us to find out when we have our 30% off sale. Pssst, it's happening now. With a little bit of planning, your campaign will be more successful (and save you time). Test your assumptions You can test anything, most notably headlines. Write a great piece of content, tweet it out with different copy, and measure the results. You then repeat the best performing tweet and only that one Some people are terrified to recycle their Twitter tweets, falsely believing they will lose followers. Test that assumption and find out. You may surprise yourself by growing your audience in a different country. If your engagements don't change for the better or worse, you'll know you need to focus on creating better content from the start. Mesh one-time tweets with repeat tweets Fluidly mixing one-time tweets and repeat tweets will save you time during busy moments. Let's say you have a weekly live webinar. That day you'll be manually tweeting about the topic, but two minutes prior, you'll be busy setting up. You want to generate a quick tweet that reminds your audience it's time to get off Twitter and listen to you. How about, "Don't miss the webinar! It's live right now." Or "Here's your one-minute countdown to come join me and my special guest." From your manual tweets minutes earlier, they'll already know who the special guest is, or what the webinar is about. That easy automation will be something everyone will appreciate—so long as you still find ways to keep it fresh. Know when the time has come Pay attention to your repeated tweets in terms of engagements. If you timed your first post well, the performance numbers tend to slope gently down. Watch out for stark drop-offs. Those can be a sign that you repeated the tweet too many times, or that it wasn't worth repeating. Make sure that the tweets you recycle are still new and relevant. The best content should only be the best for so long. Ready to get started repeating your tweets? MavSocial's campaign optimization tool MavRepeater is coming soon. Really soon!

Written by:

Dayana Stockdale
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I’m an experienced copywriter, journalist, and general geek who has written copy for a variety of software and IT clients--including Japan’s largest software provider Saison Information Systems and the consulting firm who designed critical databases for California’s DOJ. A little more about why my expertise is in software and IT: My college and post-college work experience included web design, QA engineering for apps and software, and database management. Now, I’m a part time content manager for MavSocial, where I assign topics to other freelancers and copyedit their pieces, in additi...
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