Timing Entries For Post Popularity

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Thanks to social boomarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us, it seems like there’s a formula for just about everything pertaining to blogging these days:

• How to write attention-getting headlines;

• How to craft descriptions and summaries to draw readers;

• How to write compelling excerpts.

Now there’s even advice on the best and worst times to post entries. (Found via ReadWriteWeb.)

After analyzing 10,000+ entries that became popular on various social bookmarking sites, the best times appear to be Tuesday through Friday between 10am - 2pm PST. The worst times? Late nights and weekends.

So, should you restrict yourself to posting your best efforts during those hours? Not really. Even the study author, Jake Luciani points out that range doesn’t account for the time it took for a post to get to the front page of various social bookmarking sites.

I’d point out, too, that it also depends on your frequency of posting. A good post written late at night and left as the top entry on your blog for an entire day will still catch that 10 am - 2 pm traffic, giving it pretty much the same odds of getting bookmarked… if you have readers who actually do such things.

That’s the ultimate determinant, if you ask me. There are plenty of blogs producing quality, useful content for readers who, for whatever reason, still don’t submit entries to social bookmarking sites. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s a trait I’ve noticed recently… just as I’ve noticed that some readerships bookmark every single entry at other sites, regardless of their general usefulness.

Which is why I’d be interested in study on what prompts people to social bookmark an entry: is it the general usefulness, the originality, the readers’ desire to look like they’ve “discovered” something, or veiled butt-kissing in the hope of getting a return bookmark?

How about you? What makes you Digg, Stumble or bookmark something? Share in the comments.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am and is filed under Building Traffic (Blogging 201). Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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Tagged in: blog traffic | digg | social bookmarking | stumbleupon

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