The Best Time to Hit Publish. (I Think I Found It).
Many things are out of our control. Yet we should use what we realize but have not actualized by knowing it but not doing it.
Timing of a post can directly impact the traffic you get.
When it comes to timing and finding the best time to post boils down to content correlation to the account and the time the post was posted.
Why Timing is everything.
There are 2 components:
- The timing of what a post should be published.
- How often do you post or the # of posts you can post per day?
Framework: When to post.
Think in Time Zones or slots.
As Theo Rose, mentioned in one of his posts how Medium is open 24 hours a day and I would add it is open every single day of the year.
First, you need some kind of consistency by posting at least once a day. Or else there is no point in you trying to see what time to post works best for you.
Basically, you need a dataset of your own for you to see what is the optimum time to post.
Now this can be totally different for each writer.
You should have a sense of it if you engage and pay attention to your stats.
I believe many could not stop looking at their stats not knowing there is useful information right in front of them.
When I see things moving the first thing that comes to mind is to see what I can write about not what is going on with my stats. (even if a post is doing well, there isn’t much you can do to make it any better besides replying to comments)
A good way to see what time zone or time frame is doing better for your post is by just looking at your email at the time each post is being published.
Check your emails for clues on what is the best time to post for you.
I’m sure you know which post did well and not so well by memory if you only post a few times a day.
I.e. there is a reason the stock market opens at a certain of the day, which is the highest traffic time of the day. (For Medium it is around the same time)
For you, you need to find the time to map out your daily posts around those time frames.
Framework: Posting frequency.
How often you post will depend on how many posts you can put out daily.
For the past couple of days, I have been posting on different publications for a couple of reasons.
- To increase the # of posts per day.
- Testing short and longer forms.
- How the traffic will clutter when 2 posts are published within 5 minutes? (this one was a mistake but there are lessons to be learned)
- To bring valuable insights like this back to the pub and new writers.
Some takeaways to consider after you find when and how often you can put out an article.
Have a short and long-term plan based on your capacity of output.
If time is not an issue, you should be posting around every 4 to 6 hours. Or every 8 to 12 hours if your input is limited.
If you are serious about making this a business treat it as a business not just a writing hobby.
Creating a model that fits your schedule is the next step after you have consistency in writing along with a good following base that reads your content daily.
Thanks for Reading.
Write Your Catalyst.
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