September 23, 2011

Morning Noon or Night

Sep. 23, 2011 at 03:10 PM | By Kate Malone | Comment Count

One of the themes that Intelliworks often focuses on in our conference presentations is signal versus noise— how do we reach our constituents amid the noise of the internet? The factors involved in sending a meaningful message that attracts attention are one part art and one part science. The art involves things like copy writing, selecting content and branding, while the science involves things like channel and audience selection.

Although social media can be difficult to track, Facebook has made this easier with the ability to ‘like’ items and respond to them. Vitrue, a social media relationship management company, just published a white paper analyzing how when and what we post can affect how much attention it receives. The company randomly followed 100 streams for products and restaurants for a few months and measured how much response their posts generated.

Some of the highlights of the findings include:

Images are more likely to elicit responses than video or text
Morning posts are more effective than evening posts
Friday posts receive the most feedback

These findings have countless explanations: video is difficult for some people to watch at work, people check Facebook as they’re settling into work in the morning, Friday people are more likely to kick back at work. The study further breaks down their data by segmenting it into consumer goods and restaurants, which produces different results.

The main lesson isn’t that you should post images on your Facebook page every Friday morning— it’s that it’s important to think about how your audience consumes information. Are you targeting the typical cubicle-dweller? If so, Friday mornings might be your best shot. How about stay-at-home parents? You might want to try the late evening.

Social Media