Blogology VI: Revenge of the Sunday!

[aggienaut]

   So as I mentioned last week, I've recently dusted off the old study of blogology.

   One of the most important findings from before was that it seemed to matter what day one posted an entry. The results (again, of number crunching from a number of randomly selected accounts) clearly indicated that Monday morning was the best time of the week to post. In general all weekday mornings were good, Weekday early afternoons were also alright, though weekday evenings weren't good. There was a small window that was good Saturday mornings and Sundays were an utter dead zone. I was wondering if this was still true, the internet and people's relationship with it having potentially changed in the decade-and-a-half since the initial study, and the demographic of readership having changed (though it may be the same people, they'd obviously be in a different place in life fifteen years later), and heck just being in a time zone 19 hours ahead.

   A quick google of "when's the best time to post a blog entry" seems to confirm the original finding, with most results saying "Monday morning and Thursday," though a few say other things. Anyway, so what did my recent analysis of 100+ recent entries of my own indicate?

Average unique commenters per entry, all entries: 5.65 (117 cases)
Average unique commenters per entry, weekdays: 5.03 (82 cases)
Average unique commenters per entry, Saturdays: 6.37 (19 cases)
Average unique commenters per entry, Sundays: 7.00 (16 cases)

   So this seems to turn the old results on their head. Sunday now seems the best time to post, followed by Saturday.

   BUT, quite plausibly the results could be skewed by the very fact that I knew Sundays were a bad time to post, and therefore only posted on Sundays when I had something particularly interesting to post (though 16 of 117 entries falling on a Sunday is actually exactly 1/7th of the total so they'd seem evenly distributed onto Sundays). For example, let's look at the difference between public entries and friends-only entries. You'd think all things being equal, an entry being friends-locked would make people less likely to see it, but in actual fact friends-locked entries probably represent a more interesting subset of entries.

Public entries: 4.88 unique commenters per entry.
Friends-locked entries: 7.03 unique commenters per entry.

   This obviously doesn't mean friends-locking your entries make them more engaging, but rather indicates how more interesting entries can "self select themselves" in statistical ways, as may be happening with Sundays.

   Anyway, since I saw the initial results some weeks ago I've been posting regularly on Sundays again, I'll be very interesting to see if now that I'm not trying to avoid Sundays if they still hold up a higher than average engagement rate or not.


Totally Unrelated Picture of the Day

And here's a picture from the drive mentioned in the previous Ethiopia entry.
Because entries with pictures get 19% more unique commenters ;) (5.80 vs 4.88) (and 70% more likes! 3.84 avg vs 2.25)

Comments

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

I'm so erratic about both posting and reading. But I'm in the midst of trying to write the second book, and waiting anxiously for my editor's comments on the first so I can finalize the book that's to be published in April.

I can't imagine anyone can figure out when I would post, or pay much attention to it when I finally do!

[mollywheezy.livejournal.com]

I'm apparently the blip on your chart, lol, since I hardly ever have time to read or post on weekends right now. I do read the posts eventually that were posted on Sundays, but not on Sunday.

That's a great picture! :)

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

this barren planet...
how do those trees survive?