Today Facebook is one of the most important web traffic marketing platforms. Buddy Media, a Facebook marketing software company, recently conducted a study to understand the effect of the time, day and content of Facebook postings on engagement rates. The study included over 200 clients. Engagement rates were measure based on ‘likes’ and comments, and the size of a company’s fan base was also considered in the calculation.
According to this study, many Facebook users spent time on the site either before or after business hours, while 60% of companies’ updates were posted between ten in morning and four in evening. The engagement rates of companies that post Facebook updates outside the regular business hours were 20% higher compared to companies that post content only during the business hours.
The study also came up with other useful data like:
- Saturday posts generated least engagement. The rate was 18% lower than other days of the week.
- Engagement rates for posts updated on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were 3.5% lower compared to other days.
- Posts with 80 characters or less had 27% higher engagement rates
- Updates posted on Thursday and Friday generated 18% more engagement compared to those on other days.
- Posts ending with a question had 15% higher engagement rates.
Engagement and community building are a continuous process and require consistency in posting. Although there is no hard and fast rule, 1-2 postings per day is considered optimum. These results do not mean that marketers should post Facebook updates only on a particular day and time, but they can make use of this information to improve their company’s engagement rates.