Timing is key to your social media activities
Nine out of ten 25-34 year old Brits visited a social networking site in May according to the latest figures from comScore, and amongst those aged 55+ that number is still up at 67%.
But there’s more to these figures than simply drawing the (predictable) conclusion that social networks have a key role in communications plans. That’s because the number of hours which people spend on average on social network sites is relatively modest: 4.6 hours per month or just under 10 minutes per day.
Given the volume of data which flows through social networks, this means that people are typically not spending much time going back to see what they’ve missed since they last logged in. If your content isn’t near the top of the pile when someone logs in to a social networking site, there’s a high chance they won’t look back far enough to find it.
So knowing when your target audiences are most likely to login, and hence when best to send out messages such as tweets or Facebook fan updates, is important to ensure that your messages are actually getting read.
Buffer is a great tool to help with doing just that. Get your timing right and you’ll get more return for the time you put into online campaigning.
I also think it is key to check the pace of your updates compared to the pace of the social network.
Sending out a few tweets in a short space of time seems acceptable if, for example, you are live-tweeting an event. However, if those updates are also put out on Facebook they can clutter up the news stream and lead to people hiding you permanently.
Perhaps social networks will present different views to users depending on the frequency at which they check in?
That’s a good point Jamie.