In a new study by Visibly, statistics show that most Facebook status updates by brands get 50 percent of their “likes” within the first hour and 20 minutes of being published, while 95 percent are attained within the first 22 hours. Over 200 million Facebook users in February and March were analyzed based upon their engagement across the behemoth social networking site.
Life is short
One hour and 20 minutes for half of your post’s likes. That’s not a very long lifespan, just over five percent of an entire day. Is your brand making the most of it? Most advertising agencies are really starting to look into this phenomenon – as well they should. It’s no longer as easy as just posting and letting something go viral (the pros already know this). If you want to contend and be smart about your posts, you’ve got to do the legwork – or find someone who can.
If the majority of your target audience is browsing Facebook and Twitter at 6:30-9:00 p.m. each night, then what good is sending out your best content at 10:00 a.m.? Sure it might get a few good hits, but just imagine what it could do if it was sent during peak traffic hours.
Automation Tools
There are several great programs you can use to schedule posts, should you want to have a life outside of the office. Hootesuite, Tweetdeck and LaterBro are just a few worthwhile programs, but a simple Google search will show you more.
A disclaimer, however: While I wholly support the use of automation for tasks like these, you’ve definitely got to keep an eye on what’s happening during and around these scheduled updates – nobody wants to be the person on Twitter boasting about his business while a worldwide tragedy or some other massive social event is taking place. With that in mind, I usually never set updates to go off more than a day or two in advance.
There’s an exact science to finding where and when your consumers are online and interacting the most. Couple this information with a few content-rich posts and before you know it you’ll be riding the social media wave.
Do you use any of these tactics? Let us know what works for you. After all, that’s the beauty of social media.
(Image via Visibli)
