Roxanne Roark
So you probably read all about what a Tweet Archive is in our previous article, so this article is all about how to start one. The easiest way.
What The Heck Is A Tweet Archive?
Now, you can call it a Tweet Archive, a Twitter Library, or a Tweet Library, but it’s all the same thing; a document full of pre-made tweets that you can use to earn more engagement on your Twitter feed while also adding more value for your followers — all in less time! It must be magic, right? Ha, no it’s not. It’s the power of Hootsuite.
Tweet Archives: Excel Is Your Friend
HootSuite Pro allows you to “bulk” schedule some of your tweets, so creating a tweet archive to use this feature is pretty paramount. Doing this now and maintaining the timeliness of the content you use once in a while, will save you a lot of time. To further save yourself the time, you create a tweet archive full of evergreen, or timeless, tweets. This prevents you from having to really worry about how long you use these tweets. However, I recommend if you do plan to use these over and over, you create at least 50 or more. If you use a tweet archive with 50 pre-made tweets, and schedule for them to post to Twitter about every hour for even 10 hours a day, you’ll have five days worth of tweets! If you schedule more often, you’ll still have quite a few days’ worth.
HootSuite uses an excel template sheet that they provide so Microsoft excel will be your friend. I promise, though, you don’t need to know anything special. You can find the template for your new tweet archive here.
How To Format Your Tweet Archive
HootSuite has a few rules for their bulk scheduling feature, so following them while you create your Tweet Archive will definitely save you some time (and frustration) later on, when you’re ready to upload all of those awesome tweets into your account. Here’s what HootSuite has to say:
- Column 1: Date and time. The accepted DATE format is: mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm or dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm Be sure to identify which format you are using above.
- Column 2: Your message. For Twitter there is a limit of 140 characters, including the URL (which reserves at most 23 characters).
- Column 3: URL (optional): The full URL.
- Times must be set in the future (at least 10 minutes from upload time).
- Posting times should end in either a 5 or a 0, i.e. 10:45 or 10:50.
- Define only one message per time slot.
- Duplicate messages are not allowed.
- There is a maximum of 350 scheduled messages across all social networks.
As you can see, they mention to make sure your tweets are of correct length. If you plan to add a link, be sure to limit your tweet message to about 117 characters so the link will fit into your tweet!
Is It Really That Easy? / You Are Not A Robot
Yes! Well.. creating and using the tweet archive is relatively that easy. You have to be sure that you are updating your content and your tweets or else they become stale and people will start thinking you just don’t care. The other MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU MUST ABSOLUTELY DO IS.. Reply! Engage!
You must be sure that even though you are using automation here, you are not forgetting the people reading your tweets. This “tool” is another great addition to your arsenal of social media marketing, but you still need to be “real” on Twitter. If you’re only adding to the noise and you aren’t responding to the people that follow you, than you’re not really doing anything to help yourself at all.
So, there you go in a pinch (and three articles)! How to create a tweet archive, save yourself a little time, and market yourself or your brand on Twitter!
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