Hubspot recently reported new research on link sharing, conducted by link-shortener, bitly. According to their findings, links posted on Twitter, Facebook and those posted directly (email and instant messages) all have one thing in common–the activity associated with them peaks at about three hours. After those three hours, link activity begins to decline. FYI: YouTube’s activity timeframe is more than double, at 7.4 hours.
What does this mean for your personal brand?
- The content you delineate to your audience has a limited amount of time to make an impact. It is the ultimate in first impressions–you can walk out of your house in sweats and a t-shirt, or you can put a little effort into the way you look. Either way, that’s the “you” the world sees.
- Timing is critical. Research shows the best time to post material is in the middle of the day, when all three time zones can take part in the conversation.
- Testing will get you far. Conduct your own A/B split test by writing two sets of copy to introduce your link. Post them at the same time on one channel, and see which one garners more activity–you’ll have your answer in about three hours. Then post the winning copy and link across all of your other channels. Additionally, you can test to see what time certain segments of your audience are most engaged by sending out your message at 10am on Twitter, noon on Facebook, and 1pm via email. Make sure to avoid any spam-y behavior and you’ll gain valuable insight into your audience.
