When sites like Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook launched, they were met with a moderate amount of skepticism. Even some of my colleagues – specialists in the field of branding and marketing – peppered me with disbelief that actual leads could, in fact, be generated through online social networking.
I admit. In it’s infancy, there was little known about the impact of social media on lead generation. Additionally, there wasn’t any real strategy for how to effectively blend social media into the marketing mix. As we experimented with various methods, social media finally got some traction. Now it has “grown up” and we finally have some numbers and trends that make sense.
Recently, I had the opportunity to listen in on a webinar entitled “The Science of Timing” presented by Social Media Scientist, Dan Zarrella, of Hubspot. Just in case you don’t have time to listen to the entire 53 minutes, here are some of the highlights that caught our attention. (We tried to be as accurate as possible while taking notes but this guy talks faster than we do. Let us know of any corrections.)
- Don’t be afraid to tweet frequently, especially if you’re tweeting quality content. (No lunch menus, please.)
- People who tweet up to 22 times/day actually increased the number of followers.
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C when it comes to twitter.
- Best time to tweet is 2 – 5 pm EDT
- Best days to tweet are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, & Sunday
- Best practice for driving traffic to your site – tweet one link and allow time to pass before next tweet to allow link to ‘breathe’
- Do not tweet identical tweet repeatedly. Learn to say the same thing differently with each tweet.
- Adding “Founder” or “Official” to your profile increases the number of followers.
- Learn the best time to post a tweet you wanted retweeted at www.tweetwhen.com
- Pages that post every other day are likely to have more followers.
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C when it comes to Facebook.
- More articles are posted during the week.
- More articles are shared on the weekend.
- Best time to post is 11 am EDT or 7 pm EDT.
Email Marketing
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C.
- Abuse reports are highest on Saturday and Sunday; lowest on Monday.
- Bounce rate is highest on weekends.
- Open rate is higher on Saturday and Sunday. This came as a shock to us. Apparently it’s Contra Competitive Timing. This means that when fewer people are speaking, you get more attention. The higher open rate on the weekends is because fewer people are marketing on those days – at least for now.
- Unsubscribe rate is higher on weekends also as more subscribers have time to consider whether to continue receiving your information.
- Click rate are highest on weekends.
- Best time of the day to send is early in the morning as early sends are the first ones that get read. This makes sense when you consider your own email behavior.
- Don’t be afraid to send more frequently.
- View unsubscribes as good. It means they’re not interested.
Blogging
- Most blogs are read in the morning.
- Men have a tendency to read blogs at night; women in the morning.
- Best time for page views is 10 am EDT or 11 pm EDT.
- Comments spike early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday.
- Best days to blog for SEO/links are Monday and Thursday.
- Blogs that publish once a day get more benefit. (Yikes! We better get going.)
And, finally, the best quote of all, “If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.”
Tell us your experience with timing and results from your social media efforts. Inquiring minds want to know.
