This post isn't specific to higher education, but colleges and universities, like businesses or other non-profits, need to use their resources wisely. When it comes to social media, that means posting when and where their audiences — current students, potential students, alumni, donors — are online so their messages are effective.And when it comes to social media, there is no shortage of advice on what to do and when to do it. Quite a bit of that advice focuses on Facebook, the big kahuna of social media.
In fact, Facebook itself provides a window onto your followers with its Insights feature, which not only gives you demographic information about your audience, but with its "When your fans are online" tab, you can see...well, when your fans are online. There also is a "Posts" tab that can guide you on what types of posts get the best response from your followers.When you consider that Facebook posts receive half their views within 30 minutes of being published, using every tool at your disposal to be sure you're grabbing as many views and interactions as possible is vital to your social media success.
(Photo from Microsoft Office Images)
(Facebook logo courtesy of Facebook)
(Facebook logo courtesy of Facebook)
I think the "right time" will depend on the audience you are trying to reach. For instance, with my gaming audience, if I post before noon, half of them aren't even up yet, so generally, late night posting is key for me.
ReplyDeleteI am currently taking a marketing class, and throughout this class we focus on the importance of organizations identifying and reaching their target markets. And in doing so, we focus on the impact social media has had. Not only does social media provide an additional pathway for marketers to reach the consumer, but it also allows the consumer to interact with the marketer and provides the marketer with key information regarding its target market. However, I was not aware that Facebook anazlyzed its data so much that they are able to identify when people are online. This information is vital for marketers as they could focus their advertising efforts at speicific times rather than focusing their efforts during a time that they will not reach their consumers. Not only is it important to identify who the target market is, but it is crucial to effectively reach the target market and this information allows marketers to do so.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I am trying to get the yearbook to post more to social media. Even if we have something posted I am trying to tell my "operators" they need to even reword their posts and tweets and put them out there again and again. We need to make sure we catch students' attention at all times of the day.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Facebook is the king of social networking. I rarely ever use Twitter; all the information I want to get out there comes from Facebook.
ReplyDelete