Why Users Are More Engaged With Social Media on Fridays

Rebecca Black‘s not the only one who thinks there’s something special about Friday. Two separate pieces of research out this week show that the end of the work week is the best time to get traction on status updates and tweets.

Analyzing more than 200 of its clients’ Facebook pages over a 14-day period, Buddy Media found that engagement on Thursdays and Fridays was 18% higher than the rest of the week, and that engagement was actually even better on Thursday than on Friday. Meanwhile, Twitter Chief Revenue Officer Adam Bain — speaking at the Ad Age Digital conference earlier this week — said that Twitter users are more engaged with tweets on Fridays.

The reason is fairly obvious, says Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at the Altimeter Group: “People are heading into the weekend so they’re thinking about things besides work. They’re mentally checking out and transitioning to the weekend.”

Rick Liebling, director of digital strategy at Coyne PR, concurs: “It’s a matter of people finally pushing past the work week and coasting toward the weekend, picking their head up a bit to see what’s going on and what their friends are up to.”

However, Liebling adds that there might be another factor at work: There may be fewer posts overall on Fridays, which means a greater number of average click-throughs.

Dan Zarrella, a social media scientist at HubSpot, agrees with that assessment. “I call it ‘contra-competitive timing,’” Zarrella says. “As the overall activity seems to slow down from the hustle and bustle of the week, readers can give each tweet more attention because there are fewer other tweets fighting for it.”

Whatever the case, the fact that Thursdays and Fridays are the best days of the week for engagement isn’t yet common knowledge among marketers. As Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow also noted at the Ad Age Digital conference, most brands are similarly unaware that their status updates will get more pickup if they’re posted after work hours.

But Owyang says that what’s generally true may not be applicable to many marketers, anyway. For instance, “Friday may not be the best time for the B2B audience because they’re checking out mentally.” Similarly, Lazerow said that for movie companies, the weekend is the sweet spot, but for other media companies, Monday is the worst day of the week. “It’s the noisiest time to post,” Lazerow said.

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