Do you ever wonder if anyone is paying attention to your content? If anyone sees the updates on your Facebook page or your tweets or your fabulous blog posts?
Or maybe you wonder why no one retweets your links or shares your status updates or links to your blog…
Could be that your content is nearly invisible, buried in the gazillion of bytes of information that make up the wild, wonderful Web.
On a recent flight, I had time to read Dan Zarrella's new book Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The science, design and engineering of contagious ideas. It's a quick read based on Zarrella's exhaustive study and analysis of hundreds of thousands of tweets, status updates, blog posts and emails. Zarrella is a social media scientist and popular speaker on webinars and at conferences. If you like data, you'll love Dan Zarrella.
Back to the book. How do you give your content the best chance of being visible to the people you want to see it?
Zarrella contends that you can get better results if you employ contra-competitive timing…post during off peak times when there is less noise to distract people from your content.
While reading, I was noting all the tips about the best time to retweet and the best time send email promos and the best time to post Facebook updates. I had such a mishmash of notes that I put them in a simple list so I can see at a glance and could be more strategic about my posting. Feel free to print it out for your own reference as well.
Here's the spreadsheet list I created:
Note the info about when to send email. Sending on weekends definitely goes against traditional marketing beliefs, but the science backs up the claim that you get more click throughs and LESS unsubscribes when you send on the weekend.
I'm going to experiment for awhile with the blog posting recommendations and sending emails late in the week, when I can. I'll be curious to discover how the research bears out with my audience. Anyone else want to experiment and report back on your results?
I recommend Zarrella's book. It's short, easy to read and filled with useful data and the research to back it up. And, it's only 10 bucks.
On a side note about getting better visibility on Facebook, check out a post by Janice Clark reporting on the results of an experiment she did to get in front of her fans. She offers some excellent tactics for showing up more consistently in your fans' newsfeeds.
Have you experimented with contra-competitive timing when posting on your blog, Facebook and twitter? What kind of results did you see?
Sunita
Thanks for the list Denise. But have you tried implementing the blogging at weekend tip? I believe it differs for niches. Business or active niche blogs don’t need timing but a great news or something worth attention. What do you say?
Gail Kent
Wonderful breakdown, Denise. It goes against the grain of what I’ve always have been told about when to send press releases — that you should send them from Tuesdays-Thursdays because that’s when people are the most engaged. It may not be the same for social media, though. Never assume, that’s for sure!
Becky Cortino
Great review and breakdown, Denise! I’ve been studying, testing and observing this, as well… Agree with discussion RE: knowing your market behavior, because there are likely notable variations for niche markets. I’m wondering with the recent changes on Facebook, how sharing there will now be impacted…
DeniseWakeman
Thanks for stopping by, Becky. Facebook. A couple of things I know are that page admins will no longer be able to send messages to their “fans” and I read somewhere, but cannot locate again, that we’ll no longer be able to import blog feeds with the Notes app. As of 9/30/11. So knowing the behavior of your for friends and fans is going to be very important for getting your content seen, no matter how engaging and fabulous it is.
pete robbins
Hi Denise,
I live in New Zealand so the time frame is completely opposite for me which makes it difficult to know when I should sleep and when I should work.
DeniseWakeman
Pete, that’s were pre-scheduling comes in. You can schedule blog posts, tweets and email. Facebook is another story because they don’t like content posted from third party apps so manually posting is better. Again, all depends on where the majority of your audience are located and there are plenty of ways to get that demographic info.
Julie Henderson
Thanks Denise for sharing!
Eydie
Thanks Denise, for this info. I agree with some, but I have question about others.
I’d like to ask – is this based on B2B or B2C? For emailing, that makes a difference. I target businesses, and they would be opening their email at work – or work from home office. I work from my home office and I won’t open any marketing emails over the weekend. By the time Monday rolls around I’ve forgotten about them – so they never get read. Since the times are based on ET – do I assume the same time frame stands for PT? Or should we be posting 3 hours earlier? I would suppose it all depends on your target market and where they live. A New Yorker might open, read, comment on something at 9:00am, but a Californian wouldn’t do the same at 6:00am.I’ve noticed that my Facebook Friends are more responsive during the week. Most of my friends are in California – soaking up the sun, and not networking online. Sure, they ARE on FB, but my News Feed certainly slows down on weekends.
I read once that East Coasters spend more time online than West Coasters. Could it be that in the winters it’s too cold to go out and in the summer it’s too humid? There are so many variables to look at. Yes, yes, I know… with our smartphones we can be anywhere and still be active , but not everyone is equipped with a smartphone. I’m just throwing the variables out there.
Personally, I think it’s all based on your target market and where you live. I would suggest segmenting email lists to time zones and publish accordingly. You’re not going to be able to reach everyone in every time zone at just the right time anyway.
It would, though, make an interesting project. A/B testing is a key marketing tool.
I totally agree with your notes. Especially “talk as yourself, not about yourself”.
Thanks for posting your notes – it’s been thought provoking, indeed.
Eydie 🙂
DeniseWakeman
Hi Eydie, thanks for your thoughtful response. I don’t recall the exact details of where all the data came from other than I don’t think it was from anyone source which means most data covered B2B and B2C.
You’re right that you have to look at the behavior and patterns of your own audience, and I’d say one should test to see where the best results come from.
I know from my own behavior and that I witness on my networks on the weekends, a lot of people are doing business and responding to business related content. For me, sometimes it’s the only time I give myself to spend time watching sales videos or reading sales letters and I know I’m not alone in that. Also, B2B is made up of people and as you point out, with smartphones you can be online and connected 24/7 which means they are looking at their email and tweets and status updates.
Again, it comes back down to knowing your audience.
Thanks for stopping by…blog on!
DeniseWakeman
The best writing style for any blog, corporate or otherwise, is conversational. Formal writing should be saved for brochures, white papers, reports and articles. Write like you speak and you’ll engage your readers much better. Blog on!
Alexis
I will be interested to see what the results of your experiment yield. Please keep us updated. I may experiment as well. I’m very intrigued by this.
Pat Fortin Mussieux
Denise, great content – thanks so much for reading, filtering, sorting and sharing. I really appreciate it. I am going to ‘test’ my special announcements on weekends for my next event and will let you know how that works.
Thanks, again –
Pat Mussieux
DeniseWakeman
I look forward to hearing about your results, Pat.
Felicia Slattery
Great cheat sheet Denise! Thanks for sharing. You rock 🙂 (And now I’m rethinking Wednesday as my ezine day…!)
Felicia Slattery
DeniseWakeman
If you switch your delivery date, I’ll be interested in hearing your results, Felicia. Thanks for stopping by!
melaniekissell
GREAT stuff, Denise!
So grateful you had time to read Dan’s book during your flight. We can all benefit from your discoveries. Thanks so much for sharing – caught your Cinch cast before I headed over here.
There’s one super successful online marketer I’ve been following for years who always emails her list on Sunday nights. I used to think that was rather quirky … but I certainly don’t feel that way anymore!
I’ll have to do a little more experimenting, but …
I’m not totally convinced “publish on weekends for more comments” will turn out to be true for me (and my blog). We’ll see.
I’ve published posts on the weekends and have gotten zero comments until Monday rolls around. Go figure. But I’m certainly willing to be more consistent with weekend posting and see what happens.
DeniseWakeman
Melanie, I think you always have to go with what works best for your audience. Testing days/times may reveal new data and may indicate to keep on doing what you’re already doing. Blog on!
Bo Kauffmann
The part about the e-mail (best results on weekends) is a bit of a surprise to me, but I will try it for my next mail-chimp campaign mail-out.
DeniseWakeman
In a way it makes sense. Typically we are bombarded with email early in the week and that’s when the temptation is greatest to unsubscribe just to get rid of it. Whereas on the weekend, we’re relaxed, we don’t get as many business/marketing messages and we’re more amenable to clicking and reading and taking action.