Social Media: Timing is More Valuable Than You Think

Data today is ubiquitous and can be quite overwhelming at times. But while information may be easy to access in this day and age – particularly since the rise of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook – when the information is delivered is more important than where.

If a business is putting out corporate news or a PR agency is tweeting about industry events or awards, the audience they are targeting is other business and industry professionals. That audience is much more receptive between the hours of 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday. Conversely, certain social platforms such as Pinterest and Tumblr see much more activity on the weekends from consumers as opposed to a business using Twitter.

These two points may seem somewhat obvious. B2B communications are done predominantly during the week, while the majority of consumers do their shopping on the weekends. However, what may not be so obvious is the time at which these audiences are most receptive. That’s right. There are specific time intervals throughout the day that businesses target to deliver their message.

For instance in the B2B environment, it is safe to assume that many business meetings are scheduled either on the hour or thirty minutes past the hour. That means that those five to seven minutes leading up to those intervals are when business professionals and executives are most receptive on social media (while they’re waiting to enter a meeting). Putting a tweet out about a major industry event or company announcement will likely garner more views if put out at 10:57am as opposed if it’s tweeted at, say, 10:42am.

The moral of the story: You may add a great deal of value to your business, or to your client’s business, if you simply time your social messaging more precisely. Time to mark your calendars.