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 Budd y Media CEO Michael Lazerow...
