Written on March 10th, 2005 at 09:03 am by Darren Rowse
‘When to Post’ to your Blog II
Yesterday I wrote a little post on ‘When to Post’ to your Blog and have been really impressed with the advice and experiences that you as bloggers have left. I guess I did ask for your experiences but the wisdom shared was great. Obviously its a topic a lot of you have done some good thinking of. Thanks for sharing.
I guess as I look at the collective wisdom of us all we can say that its different strokes for different blogs. As I consider my different blogs this morning I realise that my posting rhythm is quite different from blog to blog. Here on enternetusers I try to post through out the day - but always try to have something fresh up soon after I get up and just before I go to bed (basically these posts are for the US market). However on other blogs timing is not such a big issue and I post in blocks (ie I’ll put 6 posts up in 10 minutes) - the reasoning on this is that I’m not posting so much for readers who will read what I write shortly after I write it, but rather I’m posting for readers who will find my blog via a search engine.
In the comments of the previously post I particularly found Timothy Lee’s comments helpful and thought I’d elevate them into a main post (not that others words were not worthy - its just that his experiences were quite helpful). Timothy writes:
‘The answer on when to post lies mostly in the concept of dayparts. Nielsen has segregated the week into five distinct dayparts. Each daypart is comprised of a majority of one consumer type. Each daypart is also associated with a particular type of content.
As I blog on small business, the daypart I am most concerned with is the M-F working hours. Based on two months of analysis, I know that most of my readers come during the work day and work week. I also know that the two biggest blocks of readers are located in the Central and Eastern U.S. time zones. I further know by looking at statitics for each day that peak reading occurs at 8:00 and at Noon.
I therefore publish each morning, M-F, by 7:00 a.m. Central to ensure that new content is online for Eastern readers at 8:00. I publish little on weekends.
A sports related blog may find the weekend daypart better for posting as Nielsen has identified that daypart as being best for sports. Likewise, political blogs may find better readership in the evening daypart.
It comes down to basic marketing – know your product; know your market.’
Timothy is spot on the money - ‘know your product; know your market.’ Who is reading your blog? What are they looking for? When are they looking for it? What style of writing do they connect with? Where do they live? What level are they at? All of these questions (and their answers) can and should be buzzing around in your mind as you consider the questions of when and how to post.
3 Responses to “‘When to Post’ to your Blog II”
Chris Vincent
March 10th, 2005 11:38 am
That’s a pretty good analysis of the situation, and a nice, practical guide to deciding when to post. I hadn’t heard of Nielsen’s “dayparts”; I’ll check it out.
Timothy Lee
March 11th, 2005 1:51 am
Thank you for your generous remarks regarding my comments. I also appreciate the link to my new blog.
I noticed someone already commented that they were unfamiliar with dayparts. A Google search for “dayparts” will provide more articles than you need.
I hope some of you will come by Land of Opportunity blog after reading all of Darren’s blogs first.
Best wishes to all for continued success…
Shep
March 11th, 2005 2:05 am
Interesting that Timothy Lee mentioned that a sports blog might be better off posting on the weekends… because I run a sports blog and have found that actually most of my hits come on Monday mornings, and in general, the other times (morning and noon on weekedays) that he mentioned. I think it’s because blog readers tend to be 9-5ers (or 8-6ers) who work and read blogs before work and during their lunch breaks. The blog reader demographic is not as highly diverse as the TV watching public (yet), so it’s reading times/habits are still pretty homogeneous. Of course, if I ran a blog with sexually explicit material, I’d probably see more hits coming late at night… but then, that’s just a guess.
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