“Making small changes to social media content and timing has been shown to make big differences in how effective posts are in engaging and converting customers.” Frank Dale, Compendium president and CEO
If a major news station announced the potential for a toilet paper shortage, would this create a shortage?
This was my thought as I read the results of Compendium’s latest survey on best times to post and tweet. The marketing firm studied 200+ companies to learn more about when they posted, how many words were used, times of day for posting and active days of week.
Here are their findings:
- Twitter posts shared between 10 am and 2 pm were most effective
- Facebook posts were read later in the day, between 3 pm and 5 pm
- Tweets sent to consumers on Monday & Wednesday worked best
- Tweets sent to B2Bs on Wednesday worked best
- LinkedIn posts worked best on Sunday (Huh?)
- Punctuation affects click-through rates. Current thinking? Question marks are out.
- LinkedIn posts with exclamation marks, however, encouraged more clicks
These stats are not to be confused with Yesmail’s recent findings on best times to begin social media campaigns:
Facebook: Begin your campaign on a Tuesday between 11 am and 1 pm. Highest Facebook interactions are between 10 am and 12 am.
Twitter: Friday is the least engaging day. Highest Twitter engagement occurs from 5- 6 am and 7-8 am. (Gotta get up early to keep up with the twitterverse.)
YouTube: Highest engagement day and time is Monday between 2 and 3 am, followed by 6 -7 am. (Insomniacs unite!)
No doubt, savvy marketers have already set about tweaking their activities, which only serves to cement these findings in future studies. Ergo, are the findings real, or does repeating these stats make it so? Is there truly something to the 4 am campaign launch? Remember, only 200 companies were surveyed. In the scientific world, this is hardly enough data for a headline, let alone “new findings”.
Perhaps, for most of us very small business owners (VSBs), a better tactic is to simply get out there, any time, and do something. While I haven’t conducted any studies, I know that “making a mistake” is a top reason why some VSBs hesitate to participate in social media marketing. Once it’s online, it’s there forever…a very scary thought. So, interesting as this study may be, I hope VSBs don’t take it too seriously. At the end of the day, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be. Get out there and do it…then do it again!
Sources:
http://www.bizreport.com/2012/06/research-finds-optimal-time-and-day-for-social-media-campaig.html#
http://www.bizreport.com/2012/10/b2b-and-b2c-social-engagement—whens-good.html
Thanks to Helen Leggatt for her research and reporting at bizreport.com.
