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1. Social Engagement:
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
March 2012
1

2. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Introduction to Social Engagement 3
What is Social Engagement? 4
The Benefits of Social Engagement 5
The Science of Social Engagement 6
When to Post: Day of Week 7
When to Post: Time of Day 9
Where to Post 10
Conclusion 12
Additional Resources 12
About Awareness 12
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3. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Introduction to Social Engagement
“Engagement” is a hot word these days but what does it really mean? Why is it important? How
do you drive it? How do choices such as the day and time of a post affect interaction with content,
engagement and loyalty?
This paper explores those questions, citing research and comments by social media marketing
thought leaders, and drawing on a recently completed analysis of aggregate data collected across all
Awareness, Inc. clients, including more than 250,000 posts published to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
Slideshare, Flickr and WordPress, and the 31+ million interactions on those posts over the course of
2011. The result is an insightful view of how content performs in the social sphere and how marketers
can get the most from each post.
On behalf of Awareness, Inc. I hope you enjoy the research presented in this eBook. If you have
any questions or comments, we would love to hear them! Reach out to us at @awarenessinc on
Twitter or to me personally at @dkrcarter.
All the best,
Dave Carter
dcarter@awarenessnetworks.com
CTO and Founder of Awareness, Inc.
About the Data:
• Our data is from 100 randomly selected Awareness customers
• Customers range from large, multi-billion dollar international companies to small,
privately held companies
• Industries include an even split between business-to-business (B2B) and
business-to-consumer (B2C)
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4. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
What Is Social Engagement?
Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group and
author of the book “Engage,” defines engagement as
“the interaction between a consumer or stakeholder
and an organization. It is measured…as the take-
away value, sentiment and actions that follow the
exchange.”
Engagement is the enduring effect of content to
motivate an audience to do something – the “actions,
reactions and transactions you can shape and
steer,” says Solis. “This is why we are no longer
merely engaging with an audience, but instead,
a sophisticated and connected audience with an
audience of audiences.”
Engagement transcends return on investment (ROI).
“People get stuck on ROI, but it’s only going to give
you 10 percent of the bigger piece of the pie, which
is really developing relationships. It’s the human
interaction on the other side that’s more important,”
said Erik Qualman global vice president of digital
marketing at EF Education and founder and author of
“Socialnomics,” in an interview with Awareness, Inc.
“we are no longer merely engaging
with an audience, but INSTEAD...
with an AUDIENCE of audiences.”
- Brian Solis, Altimeter Group
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5. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
The Benefits of Social Engagement
Engagement gives meaning and value to social media marketing efforts. Among its benefits are:
AMPLIFICATION: Engaged fans help spread your message within their social network.As
they do, posts gain credibility and expand reach.
A May 2009 study by Knowledge Networks found that between 10 and 24 percent of U.S. social
media users turned to social networks when making purchase decisions.
A survey report by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research, “Why Social Media Matters to
Your Business,” found that fans and followers of a brand or company were more likely to recommend
that brand or company (60 percent of Facebook fans and 79 percent of Twitter followers).
BRAND LOYALTY: Engagement also affects existing customers by improving the
chances they will become repeat customers.
Nearly half (49 percent) of the Facebook fans studied by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate
Research in the study previously mentioned reported that they had become fans because they were
already customers. Further, more than half of people who had engaged with a brand or company in
social channels said they were more likely to buy (51 percent of Facebook fans and 67 percent of
Twitter followers) than they were before they became a fan/follower.
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS: Customers now expect to engage via social
channels to ask product questions, give positive and negative feedback, get customer service and to
simply share enthusiasm.
This expectation is evident in comments by respondents to the Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate
Research survey report. The report asked what it says about a brand if they are not involved
with sites like Facebook or Twitter; survey respondents indicated companies and brands are now
conspicuous if they have no presence on social channels. “You doubt their relevance in today’s
marketplace,” said one consumer.
Similarly, brands that do not have a social presence risk alienating certain demographics. “Either they
are not interested in the demographic that frequents Facebook and Twitter or they are unaware of the
opportunity to get more exposure,” said another consumer.
EDGERANK: “Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm … is the key to effectively managing content
on Facebook for deeper and more meaningful engagement,” Taulbee Jackson, president and chief
executive officer at digital media agency Raidious, told Awareness in an interview for our “2012 Social
Marketing & New Media Predictions” white paper. EdgeRank strongly favors content with engagement.
In fact, it is a primary variable.
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6. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
The Science of Social Engagement
Engagement Whether by instinct or insight, most social media marketers
Best Practices have a good idea of when and where to post to generate the
most interaction. There are literally hundreds of theories, but
most are just that: Theories.
Andrew Patterson,
director of new media With the data now available for marketers, there is no need for
guesswork. Social media marketing programs are increasingly
at MLB Advanced
scrutinized by the same data-driven business standards as
Media, offered this other marketing programs. We saw evidence of this in our late-
best practice when 2011 survey, “The State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas
interviewed by Aware- For Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing
Challenges in 2012.” Marketers reported they would focus on
ness for our white paper, “The So-
more robust social marketing management (50 percent) and
cial Funnel: Driving Business Value
monitoring (45 percent) in 2012. More than half (58 percent)
with Social Marketing”: reported measuring ROI as their top social marketing challenge
# ?
for 2012.
=
Be consistent.
?
?
%
“Engagement is all about consist-
%
% ?
?
ency. You can’t be there one day
# ?=
and gone the next. If your resourc-
es can be more consistent across
%
many channels, then by all means
try and do it. If you spread yourself
?
+ ?
too thin, you offer an experience %
that changes for fans, and I don’t
think they respond as well to that.”
Marketers need to know which publishing variables drive
meaningful engagement. They should be able to answer:
• What day of the week has the highest post volume?
• What day of the week has the highest interaction
rate?
• What day of the week has the highest number of
interactions per post?
This paper takes a scientific approach, quantifying what does
and what does not work.
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7. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
When to Post: Day of Week
What day of the week is the
best to post for maximum Engagement
interaction? To answer this, Best Practices
we started by looking at the
average number of posts per
day. Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter
Group, reported in her blog that
Sunday
Saturday the 2009 Wetpaint/Altimeter Group
Friday
Thursday “ENGAGEMENTdb Report” re-
Wednesday Average Number of Posts per Day (in thousand) vealed a number of best practices
Tuesday
Monday
40K to drive engagement:
36,045
35K
Total Number of Posts
36045
30K “Emphasize quality, not just
34872
34767
31841
quantity.” Engagement requires
31049
25K
20K a commitment to keeping content
20085
19868
15K fresh and to being responsive to
10K comments.
5K
12AM 0 “Doing it all may not be for you
ay
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— but you must do something.”
id
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Social media marketing strategies
W
Weekdays – Monday through Friday – clearly dominated, should be informed by audience
with 81 percent of all posts occurring on those days. The preferences, but doing nothing is
highest-volume day is Friday, when more than 36,000 posts not an option.
were published on average. Tuesday and Wednesday
tied for a close second at 35,000. At the other end of the
spectrum, the fewest number of posts were published on “Find your sweet spot.” Social
Sundays, on average less than 20,000 per day. media strategies should be sus-
tainable. Don’t commit to more
These findings are not necessarily an indication that Fridays
than you can deliver.
are the most productive day to post to generate interaction
and engagement or that Sundays are the least productive.
They do, however, show publishing habits in the market.
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8. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
When to Post: Day of Week
Next, we examined the interaction rate, or the total number of interactions by day of the week, for the
same group of posts. The charts below represent the total number of interactions per day across all
channels and the total number of interaction per post per day across all channels.
Interaction per Day (in million) Interaction per Post per Day
6M 5,774,226 250 232
5M 200
4M 150
3M 100
ay
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It was somewhat surprising to see a spike in interactions on Thursday – 50 percent more interactions
than on Friday. This was so even though about 15 percent more posts were published on Fridays
than on Thursdays. It’s also worth noting that Wednesday produced the lowest interactions by far,
despite being one of the highest posting volume days.
This finding may be a useful benchmark, but the data also revealed an opportunity worth exploring:
Even though the number of posts was lowest on weekends, the interaction rate was over 200
percent higher than on Wednesday, the lowest day of the week. The reduced number of brand posts
on weekends, coupled with the higher engagement rate, indicates an opportunity to experiment
with weekend posts to see how it affects interaction rates. Brands often struggle to post over the
weekend or during off hours, an obstacle that can be overcome by using software that allows users
to schedule posts in a queue, like the Awareness Social Marketing Hub.
TA C T I C A L T I P S
Here are some tactical tips based
on our findings:
• Awareness benchmarks:
Thursday is the best day of
the week to post in terms of
generating interactions.
• Do not ignore posting on the
weekend.
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9. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
When to Post: Time of Day
What time of day is the best to post for maximum interaction? We
answered this by looking at the volume of posts by hour and day.
We found that the majority of posts originated between 11 am and 5
pm Eastern time, with a peak over the lunch hour, from 12 pm to 2 pm
Eastern time. We also found a moderate spike in the early morning
hours on Monday and Friday. The highest-volume time for posting was
between 12 pm and 2 pm Eastern time on Fridays.
Interactions by Day and Time of Day (in thousand)
Sunday Similarly, when we looked at interactions by
3K 2,885 Saturday
hour, we found an obvious peak between 12
Friday
Thursday pm and 2 pm Eastern time, with the highest
Total Number of Interactions
Wednesday
2.5K Tuesday volume of interactions during the 2 pm hour.
Monday
2K In terms of the best time of day to post,
20085
19868
there did appear to be a correlation between
1.5K number of posts in a given period and
interactions on those posts.
1K
Based on these findings, marketers should
5K consider experimenting to see what time of
day generates the most interaction with their
0 audience. One way to do this is to compare
12A.M. 4A.M. 8A.M. 12P.M. 4P.M. 8P.M. 12A.M. the engagement results from two Facebook
posts, each targeting a similar dominant
Time of Day by Hour
marketing area (DMAs), at different times with
the same message.
Interactions by Hour (in thousand)
20K TA C T I C A L T I P S
Total Number of Interactions
15,511 Here are some tactical tips based on
15K our findings:
• Awareness benchmarks: The
10K best time of the day to post for
maximum interaction is between
5K
1 pm and 4 pm Eastern time.
• Experiment with posting at
different times during the day to
0
12A.M. 4A.M. 8A.M. 12P.M. 4P.M. 8P.M. 12A.M. see what works for your brand
Time of Day by Hour and audience.
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10. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Where to Post
Which channel is best for generating engagement? We like to
think about this question in terms of efficient use of content: How
long will a piece of content be in play?
We analyzed millions of comments tracked by the Awareness
Social Marketing Hub to determine the life span of posts, or the
“post half-life,” by channel. We tracked the number of comments
hourly for 10 days after the content was published. This study
does not consider time of day, sentiment or content quality.
Fundamental differences in the design of social media channels affect post half-life. For instance,
we found that content posted to Twitter and Facebook had a very short life span, with 99 percent of
engagement occurring in the first 10 days. This is because Facebook and Twitter use a news stream
format that pushes content away from the viewer’s attention very quickly. Posts to these platforms
earn the majority of engagement in the first hour.
On Flickr, YouTube and WordPress, where engagement generally depends on visitors proactively
coming to the sites, via search engine traffic for example, the engagement patterns are quite
different. Content on Flickr earned 82 percent of its engagement during the first 10 days. YouTube
and Wordpress content earned 34 percent of engagement during the first 10 days.
Percent of Engagement Over First 10 Days by Channel
Facebook 99%
Flickr 82%
Twitter 100%
WordPress 7%
YouTube 34%
00% 20%
20 40%
40 60%
60 80 80% 100%
100
99% of engagement occurs in the first 10 days
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11. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Where to Post
When we viewed engagement patterns across the first 24 hours on these channels, the differences
became more pronounced. Interestingly, YouTube continued to generate significant episodes of
engagement for almost 24 hours. YouTube, Flickr and WordPress all experienced upticks for the first
24 hours. Facebook and Twitter, however, dropped precipitously in the first hour after publication.
Percent of Engagement Over First 10 Hours by Channel In our analysis, content on Twitter
dropped off dramatically in the first
100% hour, and within three hours it had
80% reached 90 percent of its potential
interaction. Similarly, Facebook also
60% had immediate interaction, but it
40% stretched out over a slightly longer
period. After 12 hours, Facebook
20% content had seen 90 percent of its
0% potential interaction.
The other three channels – Flickr,
WordPress and YouTube – saw a lot of interaction soon after publishing, but continued to generate
comments for a very long time. We believe this is because content from these channels is very
discoverable by search engines. In the case of YouTube, the viral nature of the video can create
interaction blooms randomly.
TACTICAL TIPS
Here are some tactical tips based on our findings:
Include hashtags in your posts so a current content item can create curiosity about
past posts. For example, “How to fix a lead #diytips.” This may draw previous tweets
back into view if the user searches #diytips. Hashtags also are an important measure
of engagement, as you can see the relevance of you content over time. Also hashtags
allow you to capture engagements where users may not have mentioned you by name
but have shared your content.
Publish to Facebook at least daily. Content in Facebook shows the engagement as
part of the content (i.e. you can see the number of likes and actual comments inline),
and lots of engagement brings it into a top story. Write the content that is proven
to engage fans - phrase as a question, or ask for opinion. Facebook’s new feature,
Timeline, may have a dramatic impact on these results. This new feature encourages
viewers to explore historic content and may change the dynamics completely. The new
user interface encourages browsing back in time and that may breathe life into older
posts. This will have a big impact on the shelf life of your content.For more on how to
impact your content visibility, refer to our recent webinar on impacting EdgeRank.
Cross-publish rich content to Flickr, WordPress and YouTube to expose search
engines to your content. Use those pages to promote all your social media channels.
Include “Tweet this” and links to Facebook Pages.
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12. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT:
How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Conclusion
As social marketers continue to invest in content, they are advised to follow best practices in content
publishing. Regardless of their industry focus, knowing when to post, what to post and where to
post it will ensure that marketers reap the most benefit from their investment. We encourage B2B
marketers specifically to consider this: nine out of ten B2B organizations market with content and 60
percent plan to increase spend on content in 2012 (MarketingProfs). With 59 percent of B2B buyers
engaging with peers before making buying decisions (2010 Genius.com and DemandGen), how will
you ensure that your content is found, shared and liked so you can successfully influence purchase
decisions?
Additional Resources
• “Social Commerce Lessons: The 6 Social Principles that Increase Sales”: Learn how CMOs and
community managers can use the Six Social Principles and social content to gain more prospects
and buyers, and turn them into brand advocates.
• “11 Strategies to Increase Engagement” helps marketers facilitate communication from their
audience, highlighting best practice examples that businesses of all sizes can emulate.
• “Why Video Is Essential To Your Marketing Mix (And 7 Steps to Powerful Results)” is your guide to
harnessing the power of online video.
• “How to Audit Your Social Marketing Efforts”: Learn how to develop an objective assessment
of current social marketing efforts: how to evaluate social reach, assess digital conversations,
conduct SEO health checks and develop a social marketing effectiveness dashboard.
• Digital Brand Marketing Education has compiled a collection of videos and infographics on 2011
social engagement trends.
• “The Average Facebook User”: Infographic from Mashable
About Awareness
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