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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Timing Is Everything: When You Should Publish Your Content




Nick Randazzo is a research-savvy intern at AWeber. He dug up some interesting stats for us, and here they are!
Whether or not you’ve considered when you should publish blog posts or post something on social media, time of day can really matter to get the best results.
People see your content in different places based on what time of day it is. To get the most views on your content, you should pay attention to the time of day that you post it. If you’re not too sure when to post, don’t worry- we – with graphs from Hubspot’s Dan Zarella – are about to break it all down for you.

Morning: Blog Posts, Then Facebook

Most people view articles and blogs during the morning. This is when people catch up on the news and search for the day’s ideas. This graph visualizes this.

Because blog views peak in the morning, take advantage of publishing your posts early. The earlier you publish, the more people will read your post.
Facebook posts get the most shares between 8:30 and 10:00 am.

You should make your most important posts in the mid-morning. They’ll get more shares this way.
OK, so the most important information should get out via Facebook and blogs in the morning, but what about the rest of the day?

Afternoon And Evening: Twitter

Twitter has the most activity in the later afternoon.

The important line to notice is the “ReTweet” curve. Random Tweets are the content you put out originally, but ReTweets are shared beyond your current followers, so they introduce new people to your content.
The rate of ReTweets increases as the afternoon goes on, so if you want to advertise your content through twitter efficiently, late afternoon is the best time to do it.
A recap: Most people check Facebook on waking and then turn to Twitter later in the day.

What About Blog Posts And Facebook Later In The Day?

The graph above shows that a respectable number of people still read blogs all throughout the day.
While it is still most effective to get them out early, sending them out later is not the end of the world.
Facebook sharing spikes again in the evening.
You can best use Twitter to close the gap between Facebook’s morning peak and evening spike.

How Do Emails Fit In?

Something like an email is different.
There is no universal best time to send emails. It changes based on what you’re advertising and who your audience is.
If you’ve already created a consistent experience with your readers (such as sending Tuesdays at lunchtime or Sunday evenings), it’s likely they’re comfortable with the pattern and might not want it to vary.
Otherwise, the only way to find out the best time to send to your subscribers is to test!
Send out your emails at different times and see how your results vary: a lot of people open their emails in the morning, some open in the afternoon, and many others don’t even have the option to view their emails during the day.
You have to just keep on experimenting until you find the best time for you!

By: Re-posted by J. Heath Shatouhy, Senior Vice President / Partner eTag Technologies