subject: The Time Is Now [print this page] Time is of the essence, especially in social media. Facebook and Twitter in themselves are timely.
Its important to extend your social media outreach as much as possible by posting your companys event or information at a time that works for your target audience and message platform. Staying on top of timely information is invaluable in social media, and truth be told, it can become a big burden quickly to almost any social media team. However, the quick spontaneity of this platform has a rhyme, a reason and a benefit for businesses that make it worth the planning, work and hustle.
Figuring out your target audience is important in determining the appropriate time to post/tweet. If your target audience is stay-at-home mothers, then schedule your posts for the morning/early afternoon when the kids are away at school. If your target audience is business professionals, try posting early in the morning. This way, the audience youre aiming at will be able to check their Facebook or Twitter before work and plan their day accordingly.
According to a recent study done by Buddy Media, Wednesdays are the worst days to post to your Facebook wall, in general. Wednesdays showed fewer likes, comments or shares across the board than any other day during the week. Saturdays and Sundays, however, showed otherwise. During the weekend, interaction rates rose 14.5 percent when compared to weekdays. However, the study did conclude that the best time to post during weekdays were between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. as people are likely to use Facebook during the day or at work.
Just as with any marketing strategy, the more you understand about your audience, the more easily theyre able to understand and interpret your call to action, and the better your results will be. With all marketing campaigns, you strategically select the message medium before creating your message creative itself. Determining the module for content delivery is just as important as establishing a strategically crafted timeline for your campaign. In fact, analyzing these factors will prove just as important to a social media campaigns as station selection and frequency are to radio campaigns. Think of it this way: online social media takes the place of radio, Facebook takes the place of FM 101.anything and posting times become your frequency schedule.
One of the most valuable qualities of social media as an advertising or market share enhancement vehicle is its ability to record instantaneous user feedback. Applications like Klout provide details as to how much time users spend on your site and even more detailed tools help you measure what they are doing while they are there.
The amount of time a person spends on your company social media page is just as important as the time you spent posting to your social media platforms. The more time a person spends on your social media pages, the more the person is likely to find your content engaging. On the other hand, the opposite is also true. A network of fans who spend very little time reading your Facebook wall or Tweets may not be interested in the content you posted in fact, the likelihood that they are is slim-to-none. This allows you to curb your posting habits and content style quickly stemming time losses and strategy misdirection before they take a real toll on market share and sentiment.
Time is important. How you use it, what you do with it, how it affects your content and how your target audience is using theirs all matter. Being able to recognize who your target audience is and the appropriate time to post or tweet will help get your message across and increase social media interactions. Sharing timely updates and news enhances the potential of your interactions. Monitoring the impact that content and time has upon your network will help you quickly understand what works, when it works and how to capitalize on it more.
Modern marketing efforts that rely heavily upon social media tax marketing teams in a way that ads had not before. Admittedly, social media happens so fast, that much of the time it may not seem like time is on your side. Tight deadlines easily become concurrent, self-perpetuating deadlines but dont get overwhelmed by the negatives. Perform your research before you release your companys social media presence into the wild. Examine the competition. Examine the successes. Plan your social media teams foundations and processes out the right way. Quickly you will find that, while time may crunch content production, it also does outstanding things for your ability to cut the fat and focus audience attention in a way that resonates and evolves to keep pace with todays digital consumer in a way no other medium allows.
