Agents: Want Your Tweets to Go Viral? New Study Says It’s All in Your Timing
To say real estate agents are busy is a gross understatement.
You more than likely are juggling more plates than any sane human being should be allowed to do.
Throw on top of that the pressure to use social media, and you more than likely threw up your hands.
Perhaps you simply plunged into social media and started throwing a shed-load of stuff on the wall hoping something sticks.
How’s that working for you?
Probably not very well.
In fact, recent data from bitly, the tool commonly used to shorten URLs, has collected metrics on the links that are shared across networks…and their conclusion is that the timing of your Facebook posts or tweets will impact the ROI from each little meta action.
In other words, post on Facebook on the right day at the right time and you’ll get more mileage out of your efforts. Same thing with tweets and Tumblr posts.
Let’s take a look at bitly’s data.
Timing Facebook Posts to Go Viral
To raise the click-through rates on the links you share in your Facebook posts (preferably your links back to your own content), then bitly’s data says that you need to post between 1 and 4 P.M Eastern Standard Time.
What’s the best day of the week to post? Wednesday at 3 P.M. EST.
Bitly data also suggested that traffic tails off after 4 P.M. EST and don’t expect to get much traction from posts shared on the weekends.
Moral of the story: Share posts on weekdays between 1 and 4 P.M. EST, Wednesday being your best day.
Timing Twitter Posts to Go Viral
What about Twitter? Going on bitly’s data it looks like your best bet to get a link to go viral is to send a tweet between 1 and 3 P.M. But this works for Monday through Thursday, with the days coming earlier in the week being better producers of traction.
Friday is in a class all it’s own. Sharing a link any time before 3 P.M. could go viral. After that things to slow down dramatically as people get ready for the weekend. And anything after 8 P.M. is a wash.
Just like Facebook, weekends are not good days to share tweets.
Timing Tumblr Posts to Go Viral
While Tumblr adoption by real estate agents has been slow, it’s starting to gain traction as a decked out version Twitter with an amplified share effect known as “retumble.”
So what are the best times to post on Tumblr? Well, Twitter and Facebook shared a lot of things in common, there usage patterns looking very similar. Tumblr is much different.
Bity says that links spike from 7 to 10 P.M. on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Friday evenings are equally hot time to post with links getting clicked way more often over a 24 hour period when share after 7 P.M.
Conclusion
While social media and this new study may give you a headache, and you’ve decided to wash your hands of social media…or not even participate to begin with…I think this data is good news for those real estate agents who’ve jumped in.
For one you now can focus your efforts instead of just randomly posting at will. Now you have a timing target to aim at.
In addition, you can now maximize your potential audience by targeting different time frames. What doesn’t work on the weekdays can now work on Friday evenings and part of Saturday, thanks to Tumlbr.
So what do you think: Is this good information? Do you use social media? Do you have corraborating or conflicting evidence with bitly’s data?
I look forward to hearing from you.
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