Is There a Right Time to Blog, Tweet and Post?

In this week’s guest post from SOBOX – the social media solution created by propertyadguru.com publisher Classified Ad Ventures – we tackle the tricky question of timing your social media use:

People are constantly asking questions like “what are the best times to blog, tweet or post on Facebook?” Although many people have conducted research on this topic, it really depends on your target audience and industry.

There is no one size fits all and the best answer to these questions is to monitor your traffic and interaction of social media channels over a period of time.

Recently, HubSpot’s social media scientist Dan Zarrella analysed day-of-week and time-of-day data and came up with some interesting results.

From his findings, every social media channel had different results. For example, he found that retweeting activity tended to peak around 4pm, but the best time to blog was early in the morning.

Other findings included:

• Retweeting works better later in the week, especially 4pm on a Friday
• Articles published on Saturday and Sunday were more likely to be shared on Facebook
• During the week articles published around 9am tended to be shared more on Facebook than articles published at other times of the day
• Most people read blogs in the morning (most popular), although people did read blogs at multiple times during the day
• Popular blogs published multiple times a day

Dan has also researched gender differences and found:

• 51 percent of men reported reading blogs more than once a day, only 43 percent of women said the same
• 55 percent of women subscribed to blogs via email, while only 43 percent of men did
• 56 percent of men reported reading blogs in the evening and 45 percent at night, while only 49 percent of women said they read in the evening and 35 percent at night.

Interesting stuff – have you monitored your traffic? Have you experimented with post timing and tweeting? What has your experience shown about the best times of day or week to reach your readers?

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2. Tiny Market Share Isn’t Stopping Twitter Marketers
3. Facebook vs Twitter 2010
4. How to Add the “Like” Button to Your Blog
5. Report Reveals Gaps in Aussie Social Media Use
6. Top 10 Tips for Writing a Blog
7. Social Media a Key Component of Fortune 500
8. Why You Should Use Facebook
9. Boosting Your Blog with Google Insights
10. What Does Century21 Blog About?