Study: Retweets happen most often at 4 p.m., weekend mornings
If you want your tweets to get noticed, update your Twitter feed at 4 p.m. and on weekends, a new study revealed. Dan Zarrella, a social media researcher, unveiled his findings in a report he calls The Science of Timing (above). In his three-year study, he found retweet activity to be highest at 4 p.m., although anytime between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. will generate more retweets than during other time periods.
Weekend mornings are also prime times to tweet, because “users have more time and attention to devote to content on the weekend, even if the content isn’t fresh, and fewer distractions compete for attention,” Nieman Labs quotes Zarrella saying.
The researcher created a simple online tool called TweetWhen to display the most popular days and times for a feed’s most retweets per tweet. (We tested the tool – @futureofmedia gets the most retweets on Tuesdays at 5 p.m.).
Zarrella also advises retweeting the same tweet more than once, mentioning how your followers won’t likely see the same tweet twice, especially if they follow hundreds or thousands of feeds.
He touched on how to best implement Facebook in your social media strategy. His study found engagement with Facebook links during the weekday is quite minimal, likely due to many workplaces blocking Facebook during the week. Weekends are ideal time to post content on Facebook, since people often check their accounts on Saturdays and Sundays. Nieman Labs adds, “Postings on Facebook also tend to ‘stick around’ longer, re-emerging when people post a comment or like.”
How often should you tweet? It depends on your intention and your outlet. Zarrella says accounts that push out two or more links an hour show a “dramatically lower clickthrough rate than those who share no more than one.”