Sometimes Twitter feels like a battle against the clock. You’ve got a great link to share, but do you send it out right when you find it to be one of the first to jump on it, or do you wait until you think more of your followers will be online?

This infographic from Lemon.ly will show you when the majority of tweets are posted, what times see the most engagement, and other interesting facts about timing on Twitter.

According to the infographic, the most traffic on Twitter occurs between 9-11 am ET and 1-3pm ET. That means more people are tweeting and reading tweets during these time periods than any other.

But if you’re not sure about those time slots for your own tweets, you can check out Timely, a tool which will analyze your previous tweets to tell you when you saw the most engagement, and offer three times that you might want to try tweeting during for even better results. Or, why not check out our Twitter Marketing Boot Camp course, which will help you optimize the best times for you to tweet, as well as walk you through the creation of a tweet schedule to take advantage of tweeting even when you can’t be on the computer.

Of course, tailoring your Twitter timing is all well and good, but the general trends that this infographic points out will affect your tweeting, too.

For instance, did you know that Tuesdays see the most percentage of tweets per day? And that Sundays see the least? Again, you can use this information to strategize your next few weeks of Twitter timing to ensure that more people see your 140-character words of wisdom.

Twitter Etiquette

This is really just to clear up a few things that are niggling annoyances on Twitter. They’re generally accepted rules that 98% of people follow, to show ownership of what we write, and crediting sources. And it’s just polite, yes?
1. Always retweet, either old or new style, and don’t just copy and paste a tweet without credit – it is extraordinarily rude, especially with jokes. And you will be found out, as if you’ve seen something, it’s likely a fair few followers will have too.

2. If you find a link to a story, article or video you want to share, and you’ve found it through another person’s tweets, credit them, either by saying “via @XXXX” or “HT(hat-tip) @XXXX”. Not doing so’s pretty rude. Also, copying and pasting someone’s tweet and writing “via @XXXX”
isn’t on, you’re retweeting them, not finding something via them.

3. No one has to follow you. Berating someone for not following you, or worse, using software to tell you who’s unfollowed, then complaining about them, makes you look deranged. There are lots of reasons someone mightn’t follow you, and most of them aren’t that they hate you and your family.

4. Similarly, you don’t have to follow anyone either: telling someone you’re unfollowing because of X, Y and Z makes you look idiotic, as you’ve clearly chosen to follow someone whose tweets jar with you. If you read a book you didn’t enjoy, would you write to the author to complain?

5. If, for whatever reason, you need to modify someone’s tweet to add your own comment, use “MT” (modified tweet) in front of it. Do be careful not to add words within their tweet though, or misrepresent the spirit of their tweet.

6. Making up fake retweets isn’t cool. Unless they’re humorous fake retweets from politicians, celebrities or historical figures. Then they’re very cool.