Last updated on September 8th, 2015 at 02:56 pm
Learning how to use a social media network is one thing, but truly figuring out the nuances of actions like WHEN to send your message can have a significant impact on your B2B marketing.
If you didn’t realize that the timing of your marketing messages on social media made a difference, you’re not alone.
There are a number of ways to figure out this timing and get your B2B marketing messages in front of your audience at the right time. Today we’ll look at Tweriod and Followerwonk to see how it can help you find the best times to send out your Twitter messages and maximize your exposure.
Why your timing matters
One of the main reasons B2B marketers should look more closely at their Twitter followers is to best determine when your messages will get seen by the most people. For example, Argyle Social (now part of ViralHeat) found that B2B marketers get 14% more engagement during the week, while Buffer found that retweets peak around 5 p.m. on weekdays.
Introduction to the tools
Tweriod
Tweriod is an online tool that analyzes your Twitter followers, your past tweets, and the people you follow, to come up with a schedule of the best times you should tweet. It simply focuses on analyzing your followers to find out the best time to tweet.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is an online tool that gives you more in-depth analysis of social media accounts than Tweriod, helping you develop your online community. Look at your followers, compare Twitter accounts by location, bio, who they follow, and then optimize your Twitter activities to develop your community. It does include time-of-day analysis in its reporting however, so you can use it to find out this information as well.
Start the analysis
Once you analyze your Twitter account in either tool, you’ll have the option to import the information into Buffer directly, or you can use it to set up your schedule in Hootsuite or other Twitter messaging tool.
Analyzing your Twitter account with Tweriod
Navigate to Tweriod in your favorite web browser and sign in with your Twitter account. The actual report generation takes a few minutes, and they’ll send you a DM (direct message) when it’s ready. You can request a free report once a month.
View your Tweriod report
Once your report is ready, log in to your Tweriod account and click My Analysis to open it. There you’ll see several tabs that let you dig down into your stats, including when your tweets would get the most exposure and when most of your followers are online.
Pay close attention to the difference between weekday and weekend follower status, as you may notice some interesting numbers here. For example, take a look at the numbers for my Twitter account @spacebarpress:
I’ll get more exposure for my messages in the early evenings on weekdays, while on the weekends my followers are online a little later (plus they take a 3-hour break from 6pm-9pm).
Navigate to Followerwonk in your favorite web browser and sign in with your Twitter account. Click the Analyze tab and enter your Twitter handle, select the “analyze their followers” option and click Do It. (Note: you can use Followerwonk to analyze your competitor’s Twitter followers too, but that’s something for another day.)
View your Followerwonk report
When the report is ready, scroll down to the first chart in the middle of the report, Most active hours of [Twitter handle]’s followers. There you’ll see when your followers are online the most during the day. Here’s what my chart says:
Set up your new Twitter schedule
Having all of that Twitter data is great, but until you do something with it, it’s just interesting. But by taking this information and setting up a new Twitter publishing schedule, you’re really taking charge of your B2B social media marketing.
Scheduling through Buffer
Buffer integrates with Tweriod and Followerwonk directly, so you can simply click a button and send the data over to your Buffer account. It’s a simple way to create a new schedule without much fuss.
Now when you log in to your Buffer account and click the Schedule tab, you’ll see your newly updated schedule all ready for you.
Scheduling through Hoostuite
There’s no handy button in Tweriod to sync it with Hootsuite, as it uses its own algorithm to determine the best time to send out your messages. So if you want to use your Tweriod or Followerwonk info, you’ll have to do it manually.
Generate your report in either tool, then instead of clicking the Sync or Schedule at Buffer button, open your Hootsuite dashboard in another browser tab.
Open the Settings window and click AutoSchedule.
Using your Tweriod report in your other browser tab as a reference, change the scheduled sending times.
- Choose the number of messages to send per day and the time period to send them in the drop down lists as indicated.
- Click the day of the week to set it (circle below the day turns green) or remove it (circle turns white and whole day is grayed out.)
- Click Save Settings to save your new schedule.
Sending tweets with your new schedule
With Buffer
To send out your Twitter messages on this new schedule in Buffer, click the Add to Queue button in the Buffer browser extension or Buffer web app. Your message is placed in the next available slot on your schedule and is sent out then.
With Hootsuite
- To send out your Twitter messages on this new schedule, compose your message and click the AutoSchedule button in the Hootsuite browser extension.
- To schedule one from the web dashboard, compose your message, click the Calendar icon and then turn on AutoSchedule.
○ Click Schedule, and your message is placed in the next available slot on your schedule and is sent out then.
Maximize your B2B social media by sending at the right times
It can be hard cutting through all the noise on social media, so B2B marketers have to use every tool at your disposal to get your message heard. Tweriod and Followerwonk are just two of the tools that’ll help you find out the best time to send out your Twitter messages. Schedule your messages appropriately and watch your engagement numbers increase.
