This article was recently published by mashable. Buddy Media, a social media marketing company collected data from 200 of its clients’ Pages* over a 14-day period and found that time is an important factor in determining the success of a Facebook post. The study reveals that more often than not, a Facebook post is ill-timed — in fact, office hours could be the worst time to blast content.
Here were the key takeaways from this article.
Be Timely:
They found that daily facebook engagement has three peaks.
Early morning 7 am, after work 5 pm and late at night 11 pm.
Therefore, posting all of your updates during the workday means you’re missing key opportunities to engage fans at non-work hours. Good timing on Facebook depends on the day of the week, too. Thursday and Friday have 18% more engagement than other days of the week, suggesting that Facebook is a procrastination tool when people are itching to get out of the office.
They broke the study down to markets so we as retailers can see where we can improve:
- Retail: Sunday is a big day for engagement on the shopping and retail front, but only 5% of entertainment posts go up on Sunday. The industry’s posts lean heavily toward Friday, which has below-average engagement.Tip: Target shoppers on Sunday.
Be Concise:
The data indicates that the length of the post can determine engagement just as much as the time of the post. The bottom line: Keep it short and sweet. Posts with 80 characters or less — the length of a short tweet — garnered 27% more engagement than posts that were more than 80 characters.
And while the content should be short, the URL probably shouldn’t be — posts with a full-length URL had three times the engagement of their shortened bit.ly, ow.ly and tinyurl counterparts. Read: There are viruses going around facebook spread by links and so people are more cautious about clicking.
Ask for Engagment:
If you’re looking to get Likes on a post, all you have to do is ask. “Like us if … ” — are much more effective at getting a Like than a post with a long explanation of why you should “like” something. Remember, “liking” only takes one click and then the “liked” item is syndicated on a user’s own page, so don’t be afraid to ask for the thumbs up.
The same goes for comments — outright saying “post,” “comment” or “tell us” motivates fans to engage. If you’re seeking answers, put a simple “where” or “when” or “would” question at the end of the post — you’ll get 15% more engagement than if the question is buried in the middle. Shy away from “why” questions, as they seem invasive.
What happens if you don’t want to be sending out updates for your business on a Sunday even though all the research says you need to?
You can use hootsuite, tweetdeck, or other social media management programs and schedule your posts on their system. They are easy to set up, you add the content just like you do on facebook, tell it what time to post and you’re done!
To link to the full article on mashable.com click here.
