Today, we’ll discuss the best time for companies to release articles on their corporate blogs using data collected over the last few years.
Our research
Smile Bright Media has collected and analyzed data on blog and media posts made by b2b and b2c companies. As part of the research, we analyzed 400 corporate posts, made on blogging platforms and some online media outlets. Half of the posts were made by b2b companies and the other half by b2c companies.
The featured companies operate in various fields:
- SaaS cloud services
- Finance
- E-commerce
- Retail
- Email marketing
- Marketing
- Design and usability
- Software development
- Investment
We wanted to figure out when companies prefer to post their content and how good are their results.
What do readers like?
Some 200 articles posted by b2b companies were read 1,968,500 times by the time we wrote this article. The average number of views per post amounted to 9,840. At the same time, posts by b2c companies got a much more significant response rate. The overall number of views for 200 articles was 3,429,100, and per post amounted to 17,145 on average.
Our analysis has shown that b2b companies release articles more frequently on Tuesday and Thursday (29.0% and 21.0% respectively).
As for b2c companies, articles get published on Thursday (23%) and Friday (19%), although Tuesday is quite popular (18%) too.
As we can see from the stats, businesses are still skeptical about weekend posts. The total number of articles released on Saturday and Sunday is considerably smaller compared to business days.
This can be explained by the belief that readership activity drops in the run-up to and after the weekend. Also, most marketing staff apparently post articles during their time in the office and are not active on weekends.
Best timing for most views
Despite the fact that b2b companies post most of their articles on Tuesday, data shows that views on this day are actually very low (6,313 on average) – only Friday is worse. Thursday is the second most favorable day to post and had much better results (16,543 views).
Still, the best results were achieved on Saturdays, attracting an average of 17,741 views.
The breakdown of optimal posting days is different for b2c companies. The best weekday views were achieved on Tuesday (21,383 on average) but, like b2b companies, Saturday had the most reader activity (35,220 views on average).
What does it all mean?
This analysis allowed us to identify several key patterns.
B2C company posts generally get more views, probably because readers find it easier to connect the goods and services with their needs. It’s also much more likely that a person reading an article on a b2c product has encountered it before.
Tuesday and Thursday get the most corporate posts (and Friday too for b2c companies). A few factors affect the choice of the day: the degree of completion of an article, the ideas of marketers and managers on the optimal time to post for best reach and the structure of a workweek.
Weekends are underappreciated. There are almost no corporate posts, even though average views are higher than on business days.
Readers are very active on Saturday. Both b2b and b2c companies got the best average views on this day. But there are differences: b2b articles are also read on Sunday (3rd most efficient day of the week), which is not true for b2c.
Previous work
Marketing specialists around the world analyzed how the time of posting affects success. One social media expert, Dan Zarella, together with KISSmetrics, HubSpot and Search Engine Land conducted research regarding the optimal timing for blog entries.
According to the results, Monday is the best day for posting content for US companies. Articles released after 11 a.m. had the biggest reach. Entries on Saturday after 9 a.m. received the greatest number of comments. Finally, articles released on Monday or Thursday after 7 a.m. had the most external links.
In turn, market analyst Noah Kagan analyzed the data on 100 million articles collected by BuzzSumo service. He found out that articles posted on Tuesday get the most shares on social media and, as a result, the most views. On the contrary, LinkedIn and Pinterest users prefer to share links to blog articles on Monday.
Be different
High quality content gets good numbers on any day of the week, but it’s possible to improve results even more if you pick the right time when pressing the “post” button.
To conclude, in order to get the best reach, companies shouldn’t post articles on Tuesday and Thursday because competition for readers is the greatest.
However, on weekends – Saturday in particular – readers are more than ready to consume written content, while competition is minimal. People don’t have anything to read on weekends, and companies do not post anything, creating an ideal situation for maximizing reach.