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We previously talked about the best day to post, but what about the best time of day? The time of your post is important in order to have the most visibility, but also remember that it’s crucial to have your post re-posted or “retweeted” to allow your message to spread epidemically. Especially with micro-blogging sites like twitter, lots of posts get buried if not timed strategically. After researching this topic, I found many studies all confirming the results in the chart below. This is a study on Twitter; however, most social networking sites have similar results.
People are most likely to read your posts during these times:
The chart then falls after 5pm. Many people trade in their computers at this time for other things like happy hour, dinner, their families..etc. What’s interesting is that the gap of reading tweets and sending tweets declines as the day goes on, meaning that more people who are reading posts are also sending them. Are we more pensive in the evening, perhaps? Or maybe it’s because the evening gives us more time to ponder when writing our posts…?
December 9th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Thank you, this is useful information for our clients who are looking to enhance their customer communication. It would also be helpful to know which days of the week have the most online activity, & if there’s any correlation with email open rates for those days? Thanks again for the newsletters & for keeping us up to speed on social networking strategies.
December 9th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
My experience supports your data. My blog gets a whack of traffic mid-morning and then, between about 4 and 7 PM I get half of my daily traffic. The rest of the day is a relative trickle.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:59 am
The best days to post are Tue – Fri.
The best times to post to a social network (any network) are 10a – 3p.
Those are the rules I follow when posting to my blogs. However, with Twitter, I post whenever I feel like it, and post more often. Also, with Facebook, I usually post my status once a day, usually right before 10am. I will post several “shares” (links/videos) as they do not upset my “status” post or “bump it” from primary position, that way the primary post can remain consistent for 24 hours.
I used to have my blogs feed my twitter and my twitter feed my facebook, but I removed Twitter from feeding FB as I want to control that more. I’ve used LinkedIn less, but starting to use it more now that I’m launching my “mind-spark sessions” for “Cold to Gold: Overcoming Fear and Building Long-Lasting, Successful Business Relationships” this month.
I liked your chart – it matched another chart I’ve seen elsewhere from bloggers.
Best,
Scott
ARRiiVE.com
December 10th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Are some days better than others?
December 10th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hi Gregg,
Monday- Wednesday are the best days to post. Friday and Saturday being the worst. Check out the post titled “The Best Day to Post to your Facebook Fan page”. Of course, every industry is different and it all depends on each one’s target market. If targeting a teen demographic for example, then evenings are probably better, and so on…
December 10th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Thanks for your feedback. I find this all very interesting.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Very good question, Ted. What’s interesting about email campaigns is that if they’re sent to one’s work email, they are considered first priority, unlike facebook/twitter/etc, which are viewed as more of a personal/social activity and are visited after emails and voicemails are checked. If the campaign is B2B, then the best time to send emails is in the morning. I’m going to write an article on ROI for email campaigns and I’ll send you the link. Too much to write in here.
December 10th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Thanx for this Jessica, it’s very interesting and reinforces my own experience and observation also.
I am in agreement with Scott’s observation also, however, I think that the Social Networks differ within themselves and each should be based on it’s demographic and also the type of project being promoted.
For example, If I were promoting a corporate campaign, seeking to build a team for an IT project or offering my Project Management services to large corporates and targeting their HR managers, a post to Facebook is close to useless at any time of the day. LinkedIn, LinkMe and perhaps Twitter (depending on your own followers etc) will serve best for that.
If I were promoting my motorsports and glamour internet magazine, a post to Facebook on a Sunday morning yields me phenominal results. A status update on Facebook on Saturday night spreads across the network’s phones and a regular Pic of the Day or Daily News is mandatory for maintenance. If that’s posted at around 21:00 AEST, then my network in London and USA pick it up promptly. I may then follow up with a post prior to 9am AEST for my Aus network.
I think it’s important to understand the demographics of the particular Social Network, as well as it’s designed function and your own friends/followers/associates list when considering the best times. MySpace is basically a self promotional site that gave away free websites, Facebook allowed more intimate and interpersonal relationhips to form and Twitter is purely status based (almost RSS). Each functions differently and has it’s own personality, hence times.
This is important to know if your marketing intention is VIRAL LOOP – and who’s isn’t !?
Another consideration is that if your friends list contains predominantly family and friends rather many work colleagues, then you may want to limit the amount of promotional activity you do as it will annoyingly bombard them un-necessarily with little ROI. In the case of Facebook, a Fan Page is the answer for seperation and gaining new clients/prospects via Viral Loop.
What also works for me, is driving everything through the Facebook Fan Page, and have that feed Twitter etc. But again, that’s for an internet magazine and not a corporate project.
Best Regards,
a
December 10th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Most Definitely, Anestis. Demographics have everything to do with effective times and days. This is just a general guideline for B2B. I invite you to register for our webinar where Jeremy LaDuque, our CEO, discusses more about demographics and how they play into effective SM strategies. http://elementslocal.com/register
December 11th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Great info, but I don’t think I’ll retweet… … Now
)
December 11th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Haha.. Michael! Yes, 5:34am did not make it on the list of best times to tweet
December 11th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
But… What about when you take a national, or even an international audience into account…?
)
You have to figure in time zones and if you have a national following, that means you can be tweeting all freaking day long, almost…
Shameless plug to all photographers – @ProPhoto101 or http://www.professionalphotography101.com
December 11th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Michael,
Yes you are right. If your target audience is nationwide then I guess you’re going to have to up the ante in the tweeting department. I’d say pick the states with the largest amount of prospects and tweet away- according to their timezone of course.
December 19th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:30 am
Since a Novice I am almost always researching over the internet with regard to this kind details .Thank you:P
May 17th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
The study you posted shows Sunday as a fairly strong day, but you don’t have weekend times posted. My experience is late on Sunday night I tend to add fans, so a new post early evening on a Sunday might be a good idea. Any ideas on times for Sunday?