Earlier this year, I shared a bit with you guys about the best time to post to Twitter for clickthroughs. Click here to refresh your memory.
This week, Mashable reported some data on timing of Facebook posts that we social media enthusiasts can try for ourselves to determine if timing really affects how many responses you get.
But, first, a few tips I found insightful from the same Mashable data. Granted, some of these seem gimmicky to me, but apparently stimulate a lot of interaction:
- "Fill in the blank" posts garner 4x more comments than the average post.
- One of the best calls to action is "Caption This!", which gets 5.5x more comments than an average post.
- Calls to action really motivate responses. Commands such as "Like this!" "Caption this!" or "Share" get interaction rates almost 50% higher than average.
Okay, now back to the timing issue. Get this, the times reported for optimal interaction on Facebook are entirely different than those for Twitter. The new data shows that weekends and non-peak hours are actually the best times for Facebook posts to generate interaction. So I am posting this today, Saturday, just to follow these new findings! This makes me curious... are these arbitrary numbers or do Twitter users and Facebook users really interact with postings on almost opposite timeframes?
My guess is that the difference is more people spend time on Facebook on the weekends. Digitally connecting with friends, making and sharing plans and Facebook stalking area ll great weekend activities. And Twitter is a favorite of business, political and academic people who would more naturally tweet during the workday.
How about you, do you interact with posts on Facebook at the same general times as you do with those on Twitter? How, if at all, does your usage of the two sites differ?
