| September 15, 2011 | |
Facebook posts made by retail brands during the overnight hours of 8 PM to 7 AM drive 20% more user engagement, in terms of like and comment rates, than posts made between 8 AM and 7 PM, according to a September 2011 report from Buddy Media. However, data from “Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts” indicates 89% of retail brand wall posts are made between 8 AM and 7 PM.Buddy Media analysis indicates these are “busy hours” for most consumers, when they have less time to visit their Facebook accounts. Buddy Media advises retail brands to use publisher tools to automatically schedule posts during the overnight hours.
Wednesday Best Day for Retail Posts
Fan engagement for Facebook wall posts made by retail brands spikes on Wednesdays and Sundays. In particular, Buddy Media finds wall posts made on Wednesdays have fan engagement 8% above average, followed by Sundays with a fan engagement rate 2% above average. Posts on Saturdays have a fan engagement rate slightly above average.Conversely, wall posts made on Fridays have the lowest fan engagement of any day of the week (6% below average), followed by Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (about 2% below average each).
Yet retailers spread out their wall posts roughly equally during weekdays, with a slight spike on Thursdays. Far fewer wall posts are made on Saturdays and Sundays, despite their relatively high rates of fan engagement.
1-2 Posts a Day Produces Optimal Engagement
The report indicates that retail brands posting one to times per day have fan engagement rates 40% higher than retail brands posting three times per day or more. Like rates for brands posting one to two times a day are 32% higher than like rates for brands posting three or more times a day, while comment rates are 73% higher.Buddy Media advises retail brands to focus on quality of posts more than quantity, and to only post more than twice in a day if posts contain exclusive content such as highlights of a sale that changes during the day.
1-4 Posts Per Week Boosts Engagement
The report also finds that Facebook user engagement with a retail brand decreases drastically as the number of posts in a given week rises. Posting one to four times per week produces a user engagement rate 71% higher than that achieved by posting five or more times per week.ROI Research: Consumers Prefer Infrequent SocNet Communication
The highest percentages of online consumers say products, services and companies should communicate via social networks once a month or less and once a week or less, according to an April 2011 study from ROI Research and Performics. Data from “S-Net: A Study in Social Media Usage and Behavior” indicates 28% of online consumers say social network communication should be conducted once a month or less, while 26% say once a week or less.Only 3% say more than once a day and 7% say daily. In one piece of good news for brands who communicate via social network, only 4% of online consumers say they should never use this form of communication.
About the Data: Buddy Media analyzed user engagement of Facebook wall posts from nearly 100 global retail brands between January 1 and June 30, 2011.
