In this study we follow the activity of major brands on Twitter to determine the effect of increasing Tweet frequency on response levels via Retweets. A recent Track Social Facebook study suggested that increasing Posting levels did not necessarily have a detrimental effect up to a point. We wanted to study the same effect on Twitter.
We start by looking at Retweets per Tweet, as increasing numbers of Tweets are made per day. For each Tweet Frequency we looked at the percentage of the Retweets per Tweet compared to when a brand only tweets once in a day.
Tweet strong or move along!
Low Tweet Frequency may be ineffective. When a brand tweets 2-5 times per day they get more Retweets per Tweet, by up to 300%, compared to when they Tweet only once a day. Twitter is a high volume channel, and unless you Tweet enough to get noticed you may be wasting your effort.
Response Per Tweet drops off after 5 Tweets are made.
After 5 Tweets per day we saw a drop-off in the response per tweet, suggesting possible diminishing returns beyond this. Response per Tweet is important to consider because it impacts engagement levels, the visibility of tweets, and brand perception. However it is not the whole story.
It is the Response per Day, rather than per Tweet, that represents the total amount of interaction a brand is having with its consumers, and is representative of the total amount of touch-points they have to get across their marketing message.
Despite the Retweets per Tweet falling, as brands tweet more, the total number of Retweets only continues to increase.
To assess the overall performance of different Tweet levels, Track Social uses the Response Score, which, for Tweets, is a combination of Tweets per Day and Tweets per Post.
Response Score continues to increase as more Tweets are made.
We need to emphasize that this result does not suggest that any brand can increase tweet frequency without an impact on their total response levels, only that some brands are achieving this.
Twitter in general, and almost by definition, is open to a high frequency of communications. However it also important that a brand have something relevant to say and not be merely talking for the sake of talking.
Our overall advice to brands is:
- Commit to an ongoing Twitter program with a minimum Tweet frequency or your efforts may be wasted.
- Be aware that Retweets per Tweet does decrease with Tweet frequency. This can impact Tweet visibility and have branding implications.
- Increase Tweet frequency and monitor the results. As we have shown, it is possible to increase Tweet frequency without negative consequences.
- Regardless of how often you Tweet, your content has to be relevant and interesting to your audience.
Track Social offers enterprise clients an advanced program of Social Content Optimization. For more information, and to apply for a free assessment of your brand's social performance, go here.
We will have a Twitter Engagement white paper coming up soon. To get notice when it is released, sign up here.
To get our Optimizing Facebook Engagement white paper, go here.
For the methodology of this study, go here.