The Danger with Scheduling Twitter Posts

Social media is all about being authentic and transparent, right? So why do some people schedule their tweets to a time when they may not even be online?

Well there are a number of reasons why you might do this:

1. To repeat a post at various times in the day to reach a different audience (for example morning, afternoon, evening) - this maximises your exposure.
2. It happens to be the middle of the night when you are on Twitter and actually no-one will see your tweet at all (a bit like if a tree falls over in a forest... ????) so you schedule it for the morning 
3. You know you will be busy at the time you want to post on Twitter so you schedule a post
4. You are nuts

These may all be valid reasons, but there is a danger with scheduling posts - you just never know what will happen.

Over the past few months there have been several tragic events which have unfolded in realtime on Twitter. During the Pike River explosions, the Christchurch earthquake and the Japan tsumani, the Twitter stream was scrolling out of control with latest updates and retweets on the disasters. Then suddenly a random tweet about something completely different pops up. Whaaaaat??? Why would anyone post a tweet about the latest hot fashions when there has been an explosion in a coal mine in the South Island?

This was tweeted a few minutes after the Pike River explosion that killed 29 miners.

The danger with scheduled tweets:

1. It looks like you are not listening to your community - at all
2. They might be inappropriate comments for the situation
3. Everyone knows you are not online and are faking it
4. Your community disengages from you
5. You can't respond to any tweets or mentions as you aren't online
6. Its not authentic
7. Its not transparent
8. Its not relevant
9. Its not useful
10. You look like a real dork

Don't second guess mother nature. She doesn't give warnings of upcoming events. 

Just tweet when you are online and be true to yourself and your community.

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