This being my last blog, I wanted to discuss a service that acknowledges the growing internet dependency and social media usage. This article lists the best times to Tweet for you to get the most exposure. The website is basically an advertisement for a service called Garious which is a Tweet scheduler for professionals to market themselves and their businesses. Garious argues that Tweeting at 9 a.m. gets the most exposure because “you can target people coming to work in America and Canada’s West Coast, you can tweet to tweeple at lunch time in the East Coast, and you can have your tweets reach as far as London where Britons are calling it the end of another work day”. I, myself, do not have a Twitter account to test this out, but the article’s claim seems valid.
This started out as a useful social media tool for businesses to get their name out there, but this other Garious advertisement offers their services to social media addicts who feel that they need help with managing their time. It seems a little ironic that these internet addicts are using another online resource to control their social media obsession. Garious offers their services to “pre-schedule your tweets and other social media activities”. It seems that the future of some online services will be, strangely, along the lines of trying to curb internet addiction. In a way, Garious is a useful tool for those who spend a majority of their time marketing their business online, but could possibly be used by internet addicts who want to manage their time better by planning social media activity beforehand.
This is an interesting article and idea. The Twitter application I use on my laptop, Tweetdeck, also allows you to schedule an update. I never understood the point of scheduling a tweet. Is life happening so quickly that someone will forget to share an update with people unless they schedule it for a time when more people will see it? The fact that you mentioned that it is geared toward taking advantage of the 9 AM time when people are more likely to be online and see the tweet made me think of the sponsored tweets. These may be posted at specific times to get more people to click on the advertisement link.
I thought you made a great and funny point about using another internet tool to manage one’s social media addiction. This is an interesting strategy on the part of Garious. This is another company that is monetizing in a new form on the appeal of social media. It seems to be an “accessory” for a social media site to get another use out of Twitter.