The Secret Power To After Hours Social Media Engagement

Whenever a question is raised over the effectiveness of social media networking by eCommerce site owners, the issue of frequency and regularity comes to the fore. It may simply not be realised just how much time and effort must be put in over the long term by the average online business just to gain a trusted and credible foothold in the social spaces.

Current industry insight suggests drilling schedules down to exact times 24 / 7 …

Yes, that’s right – if you want to get serious with social interaction then any ideas you might have about blogging once or twice a month, tweeting and updating Facebook ‘now and again’ are simply not going to cut it. An effective integration of search and social into everyday marketing strategies has to mean thinking beyond a miserly bean counter approach to budgeting for developing a meaningful social presence.

Frequency and regularity of social content provision in selected audience channels are still only the starting point. Recent studies show that businesses might need to start thinking beyond the nine-to-five window. Obviously, online social engagement has always been a non-stop, round the clock activity and of course, online business never sleeps either.

The roller shutters never go down on website accessibility – especially in the mobile age – and smartphone audience behaviours suggest that they should not really go down outside of standard office hours, either.

It makes perfectly reasonable sense. For many of us, the first action when the alarm goes off in the morning is to reach out for the mobile phone to check emails and texts, a behaviour pattern which continues non-stop throughout the day and the last action after setting the alarm from our pillow at night!

While no one is suggesting that a business –related tweet would want to be sent to or received by social followers at these times but research shows that, indeed, posts and tweets can be most effective at periods just outside traditional office hours.

It appears that there is a noticeable advantage to updating a Facebook page in the evening, while Twitter seems to gain increased interest during the daily commute to and from work as well as throughout the working day. There could also be a significant following over the weekend too…

The key is to understand that a social strategy is not just for “ when you have a spare moment”, but is a natural part of the offline to online work / life dynamic. Knowing when your follower audience is likely to be receptive to receiving and interacting with your social media content is as important as knowing when to telephone or email a client in an ongoing business/ project relationship.