Schedule tweets with images using Twitter

There are many awesome things about Hootsuite as a tool for social media monitoring, but one of my biggest frustrations has been how poorly it handles scheduling tweets with images.When you post with Hootsuite it treats the image as a link. That means it doesn’t display your lovely image in the feed, almost defeating the purpose of using the image.

In the past, if I needed to post a tweet with an image, I would do it manually or use Buffer. I love Buffer, but it doesn’t do everything I need and using multiple tools can be a bit fiddly at times. You might be limited to particular tool sets in your organisation which can be prohibitive if trying to get fancy with scheduling.

I bookmarked this video by Jacob Curtis a few weeks back. I’m only sorry I waited so long to watch it. Aside from having to figure out some set up which the video didn’t cover (but I have noted further down the page) it shows how scheduling can be done easily from Twitter without losing the images.

Here are the bits the video doesn’t cover (relevant if you have never or rarely used Twitter ads from your account):

  • If you don’t see the ‘Twitter Ads’ option in your Twitter menu, go to ads.twitter.com. I found that visiting the site directly activated the menu item.
  • You probably won’t see all of the menu options in Twitter Ads when you first access it. In particular you want the ‘Creative’ menu as referenced in the video. You will need to add a credit card to activate the menu items. Twitter won’t charge to it unless you create ads. If you add a credit card and then remove it you still retain the menu items and scheduling functionality, which is handy if perhaps you aren’t the holder of a coveted company credit card.

After going through those set up steps and then following the instruction in the video I was able to easily schedule several tweets which are happily waiting to be sent forth into the twitterverse as I type.

Thanks to Jacob for producing the excellent video, he has many more great social media tips on his blog www.jacobcurtis.com and he is worth following on Twitter @jacobkcurtis for his regular updates.

Go forth and schedule tweets!

Do you use a different scheduling tool which you think is awesome? Please share in the comments.

9 Responses

  1. Do you have any new info about this? I want to use Twitter to schedule tweets with images. I do not want to have my CC charged.

    • Hi Shirley. I added my credit card and have not ever been charged for using the service. They only charge when you use charged service, such as advertising. If you do hear of another solution please let me know.

  2. Up until a few days ago I could schedule Tweets without using credit card info, but alas! That loophole seems to have been closed. I saw your post and considered adding a cc but their terms say they will close and charge accounts $25 after no activity for 24 months and I don’t intend to buy advertising. Any idea what you think they are referring to?

    • Not sure what they are referring to with the credit card charge after 24 months of inactivity.

      I removed my credit card details after setting it up and I’m still able to use the scheduling function. I’m working on the assumption that they can’t charge me if they don’t have current credit card details.

      I only started using the scheduling function recently so maybe they are changing things up. If you find out anything further please let me know, and I will post an update if I come across anything relevant.

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