Whether you are new to blogging or have been blogging awhile, you might have noticed that your readers comment more frequently on certain days or share more often on others. It is no mystery that there is a science to developing the right time to post to your blog and to social media. There are numerous studies devoted to tracking the frequency of shares, comments, likes and views and they generally don’t have the same answer. In this article, we will go over three different studies from KISSmetrics, Track Maven, and Shareaholic and discuss their findings.
- Social Shares—Both KISSmetrics and Track Maven suggest posting your blog during non-peak hours between 9pm and midnight or on Saturday or Sunday to get the most social shares. Their reasoning is that there are fewer other posts and, therefore, yours will get more prominence. Shareaholic’s data indicated that posting between 9am and 10am on Thursday is your best bet when it comes to social shares.
- Website Traffic—KISSmetrics found that the best time to post a blog in order to get the most traffic to your website was Monday at 11am. Shareaholic’s data came to the same conclusion about Monday, but suggested 9am to 10am.
- Comments—KISSmetrics was the only one to focus on which day showed the most people commenting. Their data suggested Saturday at around 9am. The reason being that people have more time to spend on the website reading the material. KISSmetrics also found that if you are posting more than once per day, you are more likely to get comments and inbound links.
Overall, the data from each different source showed that people are the most active during the work week. KISSmetrics also studied whether men or women were more likely to read blogs during the day or evening. They found that men were more likely to read blogs in the early evening or at night, while women tended to be more daytime readers.
The truth is, you know your audience best of all and are the best judge of when to post and share. You can import Google Analytics for your website to study your page visits and views. Review the data as you post to the blog at different times and days. This will give you a sense of the best day and time for your company. Also see which topics received the most comments, likes, and shares. When you are putting together your writing calendar, keep this data in mind. If you review it frequently and correctly, it can guide your entire marketing strategy.
Remember also that you can schedule your blog posts to self-publish. Let’s say you review your data and see that you get the most traffic on Monday for your blog posts. Problem is, that is the same time as the weekly staff meeting and your day just gets crazier from there. Write that post when you have some down time during the week or even on the weekend and schedule it. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.
Do you have any other surefire ways to get the most views for a blog? Let us know in the comments.
Mickie Kennedy is founder of eReleases and offers free ebooks and whitepapers on how to grow your business’s traffic.
