The art of the repeat tweet
Tweets linking to the posts at Holy Kaw are repeated four times, eight hours apart. Many people have asked me about this practice—and seldom in a unemotional way. :-) The reason that I do this is that few people monitor Twitter all day, so if one tweets something once, people are highly unlikely to see it if they aren’t constantly online or follow very few people.
I picked eight hours because this means that even if the first tweet goes out at the worst times for traffic, one of the repeats will hit the best times (7:00 am to 10:00 am Pacific or 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Pacific). For example, a first tweet at 3:00 am Pacific then hits 11:00 am Pacific and 7:00 pm Pacific.
This is a typical example of repeat tweets results (click on the image to see it full size):
First post: 739 clicks
Second post: 718 clicks
Third post: 565 clicks
If I follow common wisdom, I would have tweeted it once and lost 1,200 clicks—that’s the bottom line. Having said this, if you hate the repeat tweets because you are online a lot (could the problem be that you’re on Twitter too much and not that I repeat tweets?) or you don’t follow a lot of people, I have several solutions for you:
1. Follow @alltop. I made it so that this Twitter account now displays Holy Kaw tweets only once. If this is what you want, unfollow @guykawasaki and follow @alltop.
2. Subscribe to the Holy Kaw RSS feed.
3. Go to my Tweetmeme page. This aggregates my most popular tweets.
4. Skip the middleman. Go to my MyAlltop page and look at the sources that I use to find stories for Holy Kaw.
If none of these make you happy, you should UFM and have a happy rest of your life.
The service that I use for repeat tweets is Objective Marketer (disclosure: I am an advisor). Objective enables me to use this automatic algorithm: Check the Holy Kaw RSS feed every hour, tweet at most two articles, tweet them a total of three times at eight hour intervals.
Comments (77)
;D nmw
a kind of ultimatum, indeed.
Is it worth the tactic or strategy? or a compulsive obsession to lead an top score audience?
Do you really need to force people audience like a rolling advertising on a radio channel?
Or do you want your audience to miss you forever?
I still do not understand.
However, to shed yourself of negative feedback, unfollowers, and other "taints," the simple solution is this:
Reword tweets #2 and #3.
For example:
(1) focus on another key point, or
(2) re-orient the phrasing of your original point, or
(3) choose an alternate quote, or
(4) change the 'voice' of the tweet from 3rd person to 1st person, etc.
Rewording options are endless.
Yes, it takes a little more work to automate the sending of tweets #2 and #3...but I personally think it's worth it.
Surely you should spam people from the alltop account - I still think three times a day is two more times that you need to.
The Guy Kawasaki account should actually contain stuff that's interesting to you and your insights rather than some random crap that's been listed on alltop.
I think I'm probably going to un-subscribe from both accounts...
It just goes to show no matter how polite you are or how often you repeat yourself, some people will STILL be unhappy with you. Do it your way.
Or perhaps people have just started to ignore your tweets as they consider them spam?
One question though - if people are complaining about all the multiple tweets shouldn't you be sending the repeat tweets from the @alltop account and not associating them with your name?
I can see you want to expand your follower base, but I check my tweets from my phone, so your multiple tweet practice literally takes up all my real estate and is more of a pain to me, the only follower of yours that I care about.
If another professional tweeter or biz tweeter did this, I would unfollow immediately because it imparts that they care more about how many followers they hit per day rather than the user experience per follower, which is more likely to instill loyalty.
It's nice of you to give options. Hopefully people are loyal enough to follow all your on and off-ramps.
First I have to say that I don't get why anyone is hurling insults in the comments above. There are obviously different views on how Twitter, like just about any technology, should be used. It's like people who insist that the iPhone or Droid are better. They are both great but suit different people.
You decided to have repeat tweets on @GuyKawasaki and unique tweets on @alltop (hopefully the same list but one without repetition). I think that even at 3 times in a single day, the repeat tweet wouldn't be as annoying to many as it is. However, your tweets are often more than 3 times and spread out over multiple days. In the last 2 hours alone you have tweeted 19 Blogs You Should Bookmark Right Now http://om.ly/bRmn See them all at http://om.ly/bRmo four time. Yep, 4 times in 2 hours.
Repeating a tweet that links to this post 10 times in about a month isn't so bad and is not that ironic. You are right that many people have missed it. You have an audience that is both diverse and growing. Some people follow thousands of tweeps and miss a lot. Some seldom check (not even daily). Some check constantly. And there are many more. Plus, you and the commenters have added to the conversation so it might be appropriate to tweet that there is more information available. Maybe that is a continuation tweet.
You have a MASSIVE following. You work hard to grow and maintain it. Now you have a responsibility to your followers. As part of that, you have committed to having two feeds.
I think that you would do better to embrace us, no matter how we prefer to use Twitter, than to mock any group of your Twitter followers. You are starting to sound more like a spoiled rockstar than the responsible social technologist that you have been throughout your incredible career.
Some people seem angry about this, which I don't understand at all. As Guy says, just UFM (un-friend me, un-feed me?). I appreciate Guy's efforts and am only hoping to improve them. Maybe his programming team should RTFM? :)
And, your retweet system would be fabulous if it worked as explained, but at the moment it does not. It appears as if your only interest is in single-mindedly pushing Alltop via spam-like practices. And I may not mind even that, if Alltop were more than just a middleman between me and the content I'm intersted in. Your retweet system sounds good in theory, it is folly to try to please everyone. People will miss some of your postig regardless of how many times you retweet.
I mean for my criticism to be constructive. Your followers expect more from you, and you are letting them down. That can't be good for the image you've created for yourself up until now.
Now about the service that you use, ObjectiveMarketer. Since, few people have raised questions, I thought, I should pitch in and clarify.
ObjectiveMarketer automates the Blog feeds, with the following rules:
Publish To: Twitter Account, Facebook Page
Check Feeds: Every x hours
Post No More than: y messages at a time
Repeat: N times
Separated by: h hours
Additionally -
Add: Landing Page to each message
Set: Email Notification, to <email> if there are no posts in last
hours.
As can be seen it is very comprehensive. And, publishes high volume messages every minute for several users. There are few occasions where some messages get incorrectly sent. We optimize and monitor our system, as any other software application. And minimize error conditions aggressively. I would be happy to see if there was a software that has a zero failure rate, other than life saving devices or space-crafts.
Why don't you actually, try ObjectiveMarketer and see it for yourself? .
Disclaimer: I'm one of the guys behind Cadmus.
Think of it like a networking event. If Guy sets up a table in the corner, and repeats his "pitch" over and over again as different people pass by, that's like Twitter in my book. You can always move away and not come back until, say, tomorrow. On the other hand, if Guy is working the room and hands you three business cards in one hour -- that's more like email, and yes it would be spam. Which Twitter is not.
Bottom line -- I don't think Guy has anything to apologize about or explain, technical problems notwithstanding. :)
But.
But I do it manually, one or two or, in rare instances, three times, often spread out after two days.
In fact, everyone who follows Guy knows that, as many of us are saying here, what he says, or thinks, is happening -- this beautifully sculpted eight-hour interval -- has nothing to do with reality. You can look at your feed and it's just Kawasaki, Kawasaki, Kawasaki! It's a techno fail, Guy!
Otherwise, however... I can't resist one more un-asked-for "me too" also to the voices urging "more Guy Kawasaki" and less "cute links."
Unless, of course, they're my cute links! ;-)
I caught your article as a tweet earlier today. My question is I understood repeat or "duplicate" tweets to be considered spam by Twitter's policy.
I've been using SocialOomph to schedule tweets, and recently they made disabled their recurring tweet feature. According to them they received the following as a statement from Twitter:
"Recurring Tweets are a violation no matter how they are done, including whether or not someone pays you to have a special privilege. We don’t want to see any duplicate tweets whatsoever- They pollute Twitter, and tools shouldn’t be given to enable people to break the rules. Spinnable text seems to just be a way to bypass the rules against duplicate updates and essentially provides the same problems."
I used to repeat tweets similar to the example you gave in your article. Twice a day at 12PM CST then again at 9PM CST I would post software tips for Adobe products. Since I no longer repeat those tips, I've seen a drop off in clicks just as you described.
I know your article was dated Oct 11th, has there been a change in your thinking since that time?
Is duplicating, repeating, recurring, tweets actually a Twitter violation? If so, why are some being penalized and others are not?
Thank you for your time.
When tweets become spam
In the past 24 hours, you appear to have posted to Alltop at least 24 times. That's very respectable, but it's overwhelming when those 24 posts are repeated into 72 or 96 tweets.
Perhaps we can look at social networking like light — is it particle, wave or both? If one is broadcasting oneself, it's important to maintain the wave or one will lose out. Unfortunately, the constant pushing may minimize the value of the original particles/tweets.
I guess the same goes for stats — if the wave of numbers show that your approach is working, what does it matter if a few fall by the wayside?
Thanks again for posting an explanation and providing options.
- Ryan
I like your style that way I can read something interesting no matter where I am or what time it is!
But this three tweet system is just annoying. And disrespectful of your follwers' time.
To be honest, harping the same thing again and again doesn't change the message. It only confuses your readers and gives you more [confused] clicks. "hey I read this before... didn't I?" CLICK... "oh crap, it's the same damn thing! That Guy!! ##@#" LOL
Having said that, I have unfollowed you as I was getting annoyed by reading the same tweets over and over again.
Good luck on all your endeavors.
Twitter works so that desired content works its way through the system, when it is used responsibly. It is not necessary to use brute force, if you feel you are posting content of real value.
But once again I dont mind. It's worth repeating....
If information is valuable at least 50% of the time - is it spam?
On the other hand, each this information is folded into Guy's site, so this is information + marketing. So you actually pay for the information in this way. So it's both ways valuable.
Repeating tweets is debatable, as it's generally useful for both sides again - followers don't miss information, and Guy gets most visitors possible.
On the negative side:
one question - is Guy generating those tweets by himself, or he has some trusted team :] (not talking about repeats)
What's annoying - is that to get to the actual content, I have to go from rss reader to twitter page with single link, go to alltop and find real links (which aren't explicit sadly), then go to actual page.
They allow it to! I'm not saying that Guy spams. I can respect his strategy. But the miracle of twitter is the unfollow or block button, and the miracle of the internet is delete, unfriend, ignore, etc. No forced interaction, unless you engage. You can engage, or you can let go.
If I view something as spam, I block and move on. I never give someone a piece of my mind because I can't afford to divide it.
My guess is that those click through rates would be just as strong if it was 32 hours between each (adding a day) and less annoying.
And how much trouble would it be to write 3 tweets about one post?
That's fine from your perspective, I just don't know about telling everyone that their perspective is meaningless in your eyes.
those click numbers mean that people are reading the information he is posting at different times of the day, and that if he hadnt posted it again they wouldnt have seen it.
is this really that hard to understand?
Twitter has never operated under the illusion that everyone will see everything you post. To sidestep that by reposting the same thing multiple times without so much as rewording the post feels far more like click-baiting than a genuine desire to share interesting things. Even an "in case you missed it" would suffice to the latter end.
Is the desire to have a community treated as a community - and not as an apparent means of self-promotion - really that hard to understand?
because if any of the people criticizing him on here had his job they would be doing the same thing.
Changing the post would be even more confusing, if i see the same tweet i dont click on the link again, but if it is different i might, and then ill end up on the same page i was earlier, and that is a waste of time, and that would be tricking people into clicking on the same links.
His tweets are read all around the world, where the time change makes a huge difference. I, for example, am 4 hours ahead of US central time. so unless I have the time to go back on every tweet, I end up missing good links. I much rather see the same tweet twice then miss it completely when i could have gotten something out of it. so in my opinion his method works both ways. he gets his clicks, and we get the info hes whiling to share, since thats why were following him in the first place.
He just showed everyone how to go around the problem, and they still complain. so as he said:
"If none of these make you happy, you should UFM and have a happy rest of your life." <-- that is really easy to understand
We're both interested in the same thing - the benefit of the individual.
I had a problem with how this post came off, but I can definitely see it from your angle. My feed sees a worldwide audience as well - I just don't subscribe to the same principles.
To each his own. And, very clearly, it's working for Guy. If it's not to the same end that I purport, so be it.
Nothing at all wrong with agreeing to disagree.
That said, I'd have hoped that GuyKawasaki also would have info on his books, etc, and so would prefer to follow his personal account. So I would, like some others, prefer it if AllTop repeated those tweets but Guy didn't. (Something tells me it's the other way around for a reason though.)
I started following you because of what you represented to the marketing community but after following you for almost half a year, all I have come up with is just a collection of links (some of which are not interesting at all) and no opinion from you at all.
Why don't you just let your alltop account retweet all those tweets you consider worth retweeting and just share your thought on @guykawasaki? Actually I think that it is what your followers really expect from you. Besides, I would love to read posts written by you, and with the amount of links you share, it has become impossible to find out whether some posts are yours or just links from 3 parties.
I live in Spain and it is hard for me to keep track of your tweets, but I ended up a bit annoyed on your retweets. In fact I am one of those who complained. The good thing about following your account was to login on twiter and visit your profile page in order for me to look for good tweets. that was how I followed you, because I knew that I had your links "stored" in your profile page. Since you started retweeting, I got fed up and I hardly visit your page anymore.
Now some will say.. Don't follow him.... That is not the solution, because I know guy has a lot of knowledge and good material to share. The problem is that the good material is starting to become very hard to find between so many non interesting (non marketing oriented) tweets.
Let me just show you a couple of examples tweeted today:
World of Warcraft origami and Amazing Rugby kick scores £250,000
I think that here the problem is that people expects you to talk about marketing and alltop about anything.... but it is, of course, my humble opinion.
I've not had a problem on twitter but friends on Facebook have complained. And I guess this is just a different view of the same problem.
Pat
Inner Beauty Photography
He might edit the post from time to time saying "the irony is that because people are still complaining about it it proves I'm right" but he's not engaging with us and discussing our views... he's decided his way is best and that's that.
Do what I did and unfollow him instead.
Guy Kawasaki from brilliant marketeer to pusher of trashy links on Twitter, I'd say he's "jumped the shark"
It's a shame that Guy doesn't participate in the comments, especially to diffuse some of the vitriol. Note that Guy had a reasoned approach and found a solution that works for everyone who has an interest in reading his tweets.
rlr524 brought me back with that last comment. It is not "ridiculous" as Guy has shown by having the unretweeting @alltop feed. I for one do refuse to buy products of companies when I don't like their advertising. If you have ever seen the "HEAD ON" commercials, you would know how annoying they can be. While it may prove to be effective with many people, I find it so annoying that I change the channel and will NEVER buy any products by that company. So, no, not because I see the commercial twice but because they repeat the same thing too many times repeat the same thing too many times repeat the same thing too many times.
Keep it that way!. People is spending so many time on Twitter.
Maybe you should try to give more space between your posts. I'm not talking about the eight hours time I'm talking about 5 or 10 twits in a couple of minutes. If it was 2 o 3 between 2 hours.... I believe nobody will worry about
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