Twitter can seem like something of a guessing game, especially when it comes to timing. When should you post your tweets in order to reach the most users? Well, that could be anyone's guess—unless you use Tweriod. This free service analyzes your Twitter account and then tells you the best times to Tweet.

To sign up for Tweriod, you simply grant the service access to your Twitter account and it goes to work, analyzing the performance of your past 200 tweets, your followers' past tweets, and those of the people you follow. In several minutes, it generates a report which you can view online at your Tweriod dashboard. The free version of Tweriod is limited to 1,000 followers and only lets you generate a report once a month. The Premium version, which is available in monthly versions starting at $4 or for one-time reports starting at $5 each, removes these restrictions.

Tweriod's report is presented in a neat, clean layout that's easy to comprehend. It shows you what times you have the most exposure, and breaks it out into weekends, weekdays, and specific days of the week. It also shows you what time most of your followers are online, and again breaks it out into weekends, weekdays, and specific days of the week. It even includes an hourly breakdown of your online followers. All of these specifics are a very nice touch, as they allow you to examine your Twitter account in great detail and plan accordingly.

Tweriod has a lot in common with Timely, which is no longer available to consumers. Timely, which is now available only in an enterprise-level version for Demandforce customers, analyzes a user's tweets and then publishes them automatically based on when it thinks they'll have the most impact. Tweriod, meanwhile, doesn't actually publish your tweets; it just tells you when you think they'll have the most reach. Tweriod does let you post tweets, but it publishes them immediately: It does not let you schedule them based on the results of its analysis.

For scheduling, Tweriod pushes users to Buffer, a free service that analyzes overall Twitter trends (not your individual accounts) and automates the posting of tweets based on that information. Buffer, which also works with  other social networks including Facebook and LinkedIn, lets you schedule tweets or will automate the posting of them for you.

Tweriod's tools will be useful for anyone who's wondering why their tweets aren't quite taking off. While it can't help you compose better tweets, it can offer advice on the best time to post them. I do wish it had a scheduling feature built in, but its integration with Buffer is a tolerable workaround.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.