Don't Shake the Hook

I have the great fortune and honor of working with a wide range of businesses and organizations. This privilege provides me with direct access to the great and not so great uses for social media and Web 2.0.  This posting is going to focus on engaging your audience and not wasting the social capital you have cultivated.

What caused me to think about this as subject matter?  A non-profit I volunteer with has a Facebook page. They created a secondary page for an event. They are now promoting the secondary page to the audience of the primary page with posts like:

Like our page XXX to stay up to date on RxxxTxxHxxxxx.  (RTH is a one-time event).

What??? Why would they do this?  I asked... and received no real answer.  Why would someone that is already following them be asked to follow a separate page competing for space on their newsfeed? Why would the pull people from their main page to a one-time event page?

It seems they have many people, volunteers and paid employees that have admin access.  This creates issues such as posts competing for audience attention, posts that lack consistency and overall planning and posts that simple are not worth posting because they do not follow any best practices or lack relevant information.

Wow.... No wonder their overall page and individual posts appears to engage very little of their audience.

Think about yourself for a moment. You find a product or service you like. You check them out online. Might be a blog, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest page, or maybe Google+.  Doesn't so much matter. What does matter is your found something that you identify with and "like", "follow" or "add". Whatever the correct action is for the particular page.  You start receiving content and engage with the brand.  The odds of you buying that product or service in the future is now sky-high. (much has been written on buying habits of fans so I won't go into that here.)


What if that brand, product or service suddenly changed their messaging, frequency or quite simply started putting out posts that didn't interest / engage you? Would your impression change?  Would it change for the better or worse?  Overall your feeling for the brand would change in a negative way and with it possibly any future purchasing decisions might not "automatically" be for that brand.

• Stay consistent without becoming stale
• Don't confusing your fan
• Be original
• Don't post long rambling posts or posts of irrelevant subject matter
• and don't post with several distinctly different "voices"

If you find yourself turning off your fans you run the risk of losing them as customers. Chances are your competitors are more than happy to fill the void both in terms of social content which ultimately could turn into sales revenue and subsequent brand loyalty.

Designing and Executing Cross Promotions

Cross promoting between five local retailers worked out great.

Use social media to attract, retain and gain customers. See results. I'll show you how, I'll explain it to you and you and your fellow local retailers will grow.

See two complimentary promotions that can be easily advertised on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and email that will produce immediate results.

Time Your Tweets Terrifically Tomorrow

Business is not about "doing", business is about "achieving". A simple statement that has no argument. When it comes to SMM you can tilt the playing field in your favor; knowing the "right way" to do things and knowing the "right time" to do things.

Let's focus on the "right time". When is the "right time" to "tweet" or share on Twitter? Earlier in the year bit.ly released their findings and I, along with many other people shared the news. Here is my original post: http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/2012/05/best-time-to-post_4558.html.


To summarize, "According to the study and results published by bit.ly, the link shortening and tracking service, to get the most clicks to your link on Twitter post between 1:00pm - 3:00pm. Fewest clicks result from posting after 3:00pm on Friday and on weekends. Posting after 8:00pm should be avoided."

Additionally I urged readers to perform their own testing. I have for several months since the bit.ly report came out and here's what I found.  For testing purpose I used two separate accounts, Stumble Upon and Crowdbooster.

Test Results

The stats for my Stumble Upon account indicate best times to post to Twitter are at 3:40am, 1:50pm and 3:15pm as shown in the graph.  This is very similar to the bit.ly report but I would have totally missed the very early morning time period which appears to be quite significant to my particular followers.

However, based upon my Crowdbooster account the best time to post to Twitter is between 10-11am Central which would be 11am-12noon EST., see highlighted section. 

Based on Crowdbooster I need to post to Twitter almost two full hours earlier than the Stumble Upon report and there is no indication of an early morning bump.

So now we have the bit.ly report, and my own findings using Stumble Upon and Crowdbooster. All times Eastern:

bit.ly Report: 1pm-3pm
Stumble Upon:  3:40am-6:00am, 1:50pm-3:15pm
Crowdbooster: 11:00am - 12:00pm

Summary

These findings illustrate that we can get close to finding the "right time" to post on Twitter and definitely maximize efforts but there is no simple one-size fits all answer.  If you have not yet started your own testing I hope you see the importance of doing so and monitoring results for your firm or clients.  Your results may duplicate these findings or you may find an entirely different "best time" for posting.

Best Time to Post

Google Maximize ROI by knowing when the best time to post on Facebook and Twitter is.  How long does a post remain relevant and in the news stream of your audience?  Important questions when using social media to build traffic and ultimately drive revenues.  All times listed are EST.

Best Time to Post on Twitter

According to the study and results published by bit.ly, the link shortening and tracking service, to get the most clicks to your link on Twitter post between 1:00pm - 3:00pm.  Fewest clicks result from posting after 3:00pm on Friday and on weekends.  Posting after 8:00pm should be avoided.

Best Time to Post on Facebook

The same study concludes Facebook links posted from 1:00pm to 4:00pm result in the highest average click throughs, almost mirroring Twitter best click throughs times.  The peak time of the week was on Wednesday at 3pm. Non-business hour links, those posted after 8:00pm and before 8:00am will have more difficulty achieving high amounts of attention. As with Twitter, avoid posting on the weekends.

While daily traffic starts to increase around 9:00am, waiting until 11:00am will have your posts appear higher up in the News Feed of your audience. Traffic from Facebook fades after 4:00pm. Despite similar traffic counts at 8:00pm and 7:00pm, posting at 7:00pm will result in more clicks on average than posting at 8:00pm.

Rule of Thumb

These figures indicate Twitter and Facebook are most used during business hours, so as a rule of thumb the best time to post are very similar to the best time to reach someone if you were trying to call them on the telephone.



Confirm by Measuring and Tracking Your Posts

They key to better click through results on Facebook is measuring and tracking using Facebook Insight for your business.  Each business is unique and each may have different results.  To maximize engagement and ultimately return, post, track and test.

Post a status update

In Facebook Brand Building I detailed how using plain text messages as the baseline, images receive 7.8% more views and posts that are a combination of an image plus text get 12.3% more views. To not influence the test results when determining the best time to post try to compare plain text posts to plain text posts, image to image or combination to combination.

Record the impressions, Likes and Comments each and every hour until for that post until the post “dies” and stops receiving any activity.  You will see some posts get activity for a short while, some for a much longer period.

Repeat this process for 10 to 20 posts or two full weeks. Each hour record the number of:

Reach
Engaged Users
Talking About This

Maximum Results and ROI

Patterns will emerge and it will become clear what time of day and on what days your posts have the most impressions and click throughs on your Facebook Page.  Do your results mirror those published by bit.ly or are they different?

Build Your Business
Once you know the best time to post you can zero in and get the best results for your business.  Armed with the day and time of when your fans most engage with your brand you are now able to post that awesome special or promotion that drives in business and rings the cash register.

James Meyer

Net Profits Media, LLC
Port Washington, WI 53074
e: netprofitsmedia@gmail.com
p: 414-687-7018
Twitter: @NetProfitsMedia
http://netprofitsmedia.blogspot.com/