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It’s obvious what’s being driven as the next big thing online is the “real-time” web. People are wanting to know what’s going on as it’s happening. As a marketer, it’s always important for me to recognize how the real-time web effects people’s search habits, and its effects on how people share and “consume” information online. The most obvious effect from the real-time web on consumers is within the name itself – the timing of the consumption.
Prime time isn’t just for television and radio anymore
In the real-time web, when you share becomes almost as important as what you share. Think of the real-time web like TV. There are “prime time” tv shows. These prime time shows are the ones that are on when the most people are watching. Our goal with the real-time web is to achieve the same effect – to publish our content at the times when we have the most viewers – at prime time.
Finding prime time on Facebook
First off, it’s important to understand where your “television screen” really is. In the case of Facebook, it’s our Newsfeed, which sits on the Homepage. But before we can really define our Facebook prime time, we have to know who are viewers are define what makes them an active viewer.
What’s an active viewer?
When I consider an active viewer, my general method is deciding what updates do not count as someone who may be viewing. This is because not all updates that occur on the Newsfeed are created equal and is based on the audience I am trying to reach.
For example, an update from a mobile device probably shouldn’t be considered an active viewer. Tweets that are pushed into the Facebook status probably shouldn’t be considered an active viewer, either.
A few updates I commonly consider to count as an active viewer are:
- Photo uploads
- Likes
- Wall comments
- Shared links or videos
- Quiz results
Now that we know how we count viewership, let’s figure out when prime time is!
Finding prime time is about watching updates
It’s ridiculously simple. Over the course of a week (because there are different viewing habits each day), log the updates that occur every hour on your Facebook Newsfeed in a spreadsheet (because they’re meant for stuff like this). Doing it every hour will make identifying updates that don’t apply easier.
- Make sure you have no “Show X New Posts” on your Newsfeed when you start.
- Wait till the end of the hour and wiggle your mouse on your Facebook page (it’s how they track activity).
- Record the number in the “Show X New Posts” text as total updates.
- Then click the “Show New Posts” link and quickly skim through all the updates, counting each update that doesn’t apply.
- Subtract the number of updates that don’t apply from your total updates and that will give you your active viewers for that hour.
It’s show time!
After you’ve determined prime time for your audience, it’s time to share, track, and refine your prime time.
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Comments
08.06.09
Interesting ..
Within the next few days I'll launch a website and the major thing I can do to promote this kind of sites is SM .. so your article will be a great help for me
Thanks ..
My story with Prime time online started with Twitter .. I have actually 6700 followers .. When I tweet something , I can get only 15 clicks if I choose a wrong time .. but can be up to 35 clicks in some precise moment of the day .. so it's quite the same concept. and It's really important to watch out for these details.
08.06.09
You're exactly right. Twitter is a place where prime time also holds true. The new delicious site may very well also.
Thanks for the comment!
10.13.09
That sounds like a fairly scientific way of calculating Facebook prime time, but it's also extremely time consuming. checking your news feed every hour for a week (because prime time could vary from day to day) would take a lot of effort.
I've been using a less scientific way of determining prime time by just checking the number of friends online throughout the day in the "chat" box at the bottom right corner of the screen. -- I noticed yesterday that the number peaked at around 9pm, for example.
What do you think of that?
10.16.09
Carlee - You're right in that the method above is fairly scientific, and as such, can potentially be time consuming. I think checking the chat box number is a potential alternative if you're not wanting to invest quite the same amount of time.
The biggest concern to me with the chat box (which I think was a great idea to try, by the way) is that in the number it reports, it's reporting people who have gone "idle". So, for example, it might report there being 20 people "online" but of those 20 people online, 15 of them might actually be idle (the moon icon). Furthermore, for those people who are "online", it may just the same be they have their browser open and are not actively engaging in any sort of activity on Facebook (eg: I leave my tab open throughout the day).
All that said, I think working off of some strategy that has the potential to reach more people, whether it's highly quantified or not, is better than working off of no strategy.
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