Ever wonder what the best days and times are to send an email, publish a blog post, update your Facebook status or to tweet? There is a science to it.

I recently attended a webinar with social media scientist Dan Zarella from HubSpot. Dan has been conducting timing-based research over two years. The biggest takeaways? 1) It is important to experiment and measure to learn what timing is best for your specific audience, and 2) It is much easier to gain attention when you deliver content at times that others aren’t, what he calls “contra-competitive timing.”

In marketing, timing isn’t everything – it is also about delivering the right message to the right audience – but HubSpot’s study shows it does impact the reach and receptivity of your message.  The Science of Timing Webinar provided a number of best practices and tips to guide marketers in planning the timing of their messages.  Keep in mind these are best practices based on research, and your individual case may be different. You should experiment to find out what works best for you, your audiences and your marketing goals.

Social Timing Tips – Twitter and Facebook

1. Tweet later in the day and later in the week or on the weekend for best results. Retweet activity is highest in the afternoon. Click-through rates are higher on the weekend.

2. Don’t be afraid to tweet too much.  Twitter is all about frequency. It is beneficial to tweet about the same topic more than once to increase the chances that your followers will catch your content. I don’t mean you should tweet the exact same content multiple times, but change your messaging slightly and experiment with your timing to see what attracts the most retweet and click-through activity.

3. Publish some of your Facebook updates over the weekend. Facebook content is shared more in the morning on the weekend. The volume of what is published, however, is highest during the week. If you want to stand out and have a higher chance of your content being shared, consider publishing more updates over the weekend.

4. Don’t crowd your content. Facebook is more frequency sensitive than other platforms. Give your updates some breathing room before the next one.  Dan’s research shows that pages with posts every other day tend to have more page likes.

Email Timing Tips

1. Send emails early in the morning between 5-8 am and on the weekend. Open and click-through rates are higher during this time. This is a change from previously recommended guidelines, but it makes sense when you think about it. When do you spend time reading and acting on email? I personally spend a majority of my day reading and responding to email from co-workers and customers that directly relates to getting my job done for the week. I have more time to read and act on emails I get for educational or marketing purposes early in the morning, late at night and on the weekends. People get inundated with more email during the week days than over the weekend. Less quantity and more time for your audience = greater opportunity for your email to be opened and acted on.

2. Take advantage of contra-competitive timing. Most marketers tend to send emails during the week days. Go against the grain and experiment with sending your email out over the weekend – it is after all when people are able to give more attention to emails.

3. Your newest subscribers are your best. The newer a subscriber is to your email list, the more interest they have in what you have to say and the more likely they are to open your emails and click on the links.

Blog Timing Tips

1. Want more views of your blog posts? Blog posts published between 10 am - 11 am on Monday get the most views. Frequency is also important. Blogs that publish posts more than once a day get more views.

2. Want more comments on your blog posts? Comments tend to spike on the weekend, so try blogging on the weekend. This is when most people have more time to engage and react to the information they are being inundated with.

3. Want more links to your blog posts?  Publish early in the morning around 6 am on Monday and Thursdays. This is when the Linkerati are looking for source material to reference in their posts and articles.

The learning started with the Webinar and moved to an “after-party” on Twitter. Awesome concept to engage Webinar attendees and turn what would normally be a fairly one-sided presentation into a conversation! You can check out more tips and the conversation on Twitter - #TimeSci hashtag.

Have you been experimenting with timing? What are you finding to be the best times to send an email, publish a blog post, update your Facebook status or to tweet?

One of the major tenets of marketing is to stand out from the crowd and differentiate. However, when it comes to website functionality, that’s not necessarily the best approach. I just finished trying to get some information from the website of a well-known marketing organization and it was certainly not an optimal user experience. The site is pleasant to look at, there is a lot of good content, but the experience of navigating and searching was, to put it simply, annoying.

There were a handful of little things that got in the way of getting the information I needed.  The site required entering my registration information, not once, but every time I wanted to download an article. There was no way to save my password and when I entered all my information, I had to actually click the “go button.” Each time, it took me a couple seconds to figure this out because I am so accustomed to merely hitting enter to make something happen.

People don’t like change as a rule, so one of the few places where following the crowd and adopting the most ubiquitous behaviors makes sense is on your site. Developers may see a function as completely logical based on the code they wrote, or the visual layout may be deemed much more aesthetically pleasing with navigation on the right – but in the end, your user probably will not appreciate either. If you’re introducing a new behavior or function that users are not accustomed to, chances are it’s going to put a barrier between your customer and whatever they are trying to accomplish.

I had a little extra time this morning and decided to take my dogs out for a quick walk before heading into the office. We started out as I had intended, both dogs trotting down the block at a good pace. When we turned the corner, we ran into a neighbor walking her Dachshund. And that’s when it all fell apart. One of my dogs charged ahead wanting to greet them and the other dashed behind me to hide, tangling me in his leash. The momentum disappeared and was replaced with frustration and a few choice words. We clearly were not on the same page at this point.

Does this sound familiar? (Not the crazy dog part, but the loss of momentum part.)  Think about your marketing organization or your marketing plan. Is everyone on the same page, moving together toward a shared goal? Or, are they going different directions, slowing things down and tripping over each other? What about your marketing plan – are the elements integrated? Can you leverage the channels against each other and gain efficiencies? If you’ve got this covered and everything is clicking along, you probably already stopped reading. However, if your team or your plan aren’t all on the same path, here are a few tips to get things moving:

• Determine what success looks like. Set goals to establish where you want to go and what you want to accomplish. Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else."
• Have a measurement plan. There is an old adage, “you get what you measure.” Develop a plan and don’t stop with collecting the data, make sure you analyze the results and adjust things along the way.
• Get buy-in. Having everyone headed in the same direction is critical. Share ideas, explain the “why” and get input.
• Celebrate progress. Don’t wait until you reach your goals to celebrate. Map out milestones and celebrate the little wins.