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Some findings on when Facebook and Twitter activity will get the most attention
Ever wonder when your Facebook postings and Twitter tweets will get the most attention?
URL shortening service bit.ly took a stab at finding that out when it looked at how content goes viral through social networks, especially the day and time.
Its findings: The best time to tweet is between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. EST on Monday through Thursday.
That isn't even the peak time for Twitter traffic, which is 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday. While posting when many people are clicking does help raise the average number of clicks, if you post during that time, there's more competition for attention, the study pointed out.
And don't bother to post afer 8 p..m., it advised. "Specifically, don't bother posting after 3 p.m. on a Friday since, as far as being a gateway to drive traffic to your content, it appears that Twitter doesn't work on weekends."
As for Facebook, it found that traffic peaks mid-week from 1 p.m. to 3p.m. It noticed traffic start to rise around 9 a.m., but suggested it is wiser to wait to post until 11 a.m. It said traffic fades after 4 p.m.
Links posted from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. get the highest average click-throughs, the study found. The peak time of the week was Wednesday at 3 p.m. Links posted after 8 p.m. and before 8 a.m. won't get much attention. And like Twitter, "avoid posting on the weekends," it said.
But others have come up with different findings. Amex Open Forum's reporting of the study points to another study by social ad management software provider Buddy Media, which found that Thursdays and Fridays were "better for engagement" on Facebook. Among its other findings, Facebook posts with 80 or fewer characters had higher engagement rates than longer ones, using brand-specific URL shorteners is wise for telling surfers where they are headed, and after business hours postings had higher engagement.
Speaking of Twitter, it has just released a "Twitter for Small Business Guide," to help small businesses learn more about how to best to leverage the service and the smartest strategies for using it to help boost customer engagement and drive sales.
San Diego marketing agency Bop Design highlights five tips to make the most of Twitter. Among them, it says, to let your firm's personality shine through; follow others on Twitter to learn; offer information on Twitter that might not be found elsewhere; be responsive to tweets; and tweet daily.
Are Canadian small businesses ready for disaster?
While 98 per cent of Canadian small businesses are backing up critical financial data, just 16 per cent are doing it off-site or via a Web-based application, finds a new study by Sage North America.
"While any backup is better than none, copies of critical information kept on-site could easily be lost in the event of a natural disaster or even fire, theft or a hardware failure," warned Nancy Harris, vice-president and general manager of Sage Simply Accounting in a release about the study.
The small business disaster preparedness study also found that 71 per cent of the 167 Canadian businesses surveyed do not have a formal emergency or disaster preparedness plan in place. Among the reasons: 41 per cent said they'd faced no past issues that influenced them to develop one; and 33 per cent hadn't thought about it or didn't think it was important for their business.
Of those that do have a plan in place, 61 per cent put it together as a precautionary measure, 56 per cent said it was the smart thing to do, and 26 per cent said the nature of their business required some level of preparedness at all times.
Of the 29 per cent with a formal plan in place, 83 per cent said data backup was part of the plan.
The survey also found that 39 per cent of businesses that back up data do it daily, and 20 per cent a few times a week.
EVENTS AND KEY DATES
Pricing products
Setting prices is both an art and a science: the art lies in understanding the role price plays on customer buying behaviour and the science in determining your costs. To learn more about pricing, Small Business BC is hosting a seminar on June 20 in Vancouver, which will also be delivered to other locations through live videoconferencing. For more information, click here.
Building the entrepreneurial ecosystem
Join a breakfast seminar roundtable discussion on incubators, accelerators and seed-stage venture capital with seasoned investors and entrepreneurs. The discussion, presented by Canada's Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA), takes place on June 21 in Toronto. For details, click here.
EDITOR'S PICKS FROM REPORT ON SMALL BUSINESS
Embrace the 'zero-mile diet' with home herb cultivator
Chefs like the freshness, consumers see green benefits to growing produce in the kitchen.
FROM THE ROSB ARCHIVES
If you had one wish for the workplace, what would it be?
We asked several entrepreneurial types about their dream workplace perks in this November, 2011, piece.
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