bitly blog: Time Is On Your Side

markcoatney:

bitly:

Did you see those silly cats on Tumblr, that breaking news on Twitter, and those photos of your friend’s kids on Facebook? Different social networks have their own distinct personalities. Bitly links are shared across all social networking services, giving us a unique viewpoint on how these…

This is fascinating, but I think it gives very little attention to the most important part of this, which is: When are the people that you’re trying to reach most active on that service? The fact that Tumblr gets a lot of sharing use in the evening hours isn’t surprising, because it has a high concentration of younger users. But those might not be the people you are trying to reach; Tumblr also has a good audience reading it at work, and if you’re targeting those people you’re probably better off posting earlier in the day.

“Friday evening, a no-man’s land on other platforms, is an optimal time to post on Tumblr.” This actually corresponds with what we’ve noticed. A lot of mornings might be a little slow for us, but post something at 10 p.m. on a Sunday and it blows up. Fascinating trend.