When’s the best time to post to your blog? Before 10 a.m. Eastern time, says viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella.

BRIGHT AND EARLY: People are more likely to look at blogs in the morning, so post early for the best results. (Photo by Matt Blakemore)

Zarrella surveyed more than 1,400 blog readers and studied more than 170,000 blog posts and learned that people are more likely to view, link and comment on posts in the morning. Visiting blogs becomes decreasingly popular during the rest of the day.

Zarrella also looked at the best times to post updates on Facebook and to tweet.

Post often

But publishing several times a day “led to a huge increase in the blog’s success,” Zarrella found in an analysis of the 1,000 most popular blogs on the Web.

Specifically, frequent blogging at different times of day:

• Boosts incoming links
• Improves your Google ranking
• Attracts visitors
• Generates leads
• Increases customer acquisition

Most business blogs post weekly, according to HubSpot’s “State of Inbound Marketing” report (PDF).

Reach readers online

Want to master the art of writing for the Web?

• Bring Ann’s team in to write Web copy for your organization.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a Web-writing workshop.
• Work with Ann to polish your Web writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on reaching readers online at RevUpReadership.com.
• Read Ann’s Web-writing learning tools.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming webinars on writing for the Web and social media.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2011 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

Two minutes and seven seconds.

That’s the average length of time people spend viewing videos on Twitter, according to “Online Video Best Practices” (PDF), a new study by TubeMogul, Brightcove and DynamicLogic.

The researchers analyzed the average viewing time of more than 100 million random video streams on social networks and search engines. Among the takeaways:

1. Avoid the 2-minute mark.

Twitter was the only video source that broke the 2-minute mark. Average viewing times were:

• 1:54 on Yahoo!
• 1:50 on Facebook
• 1:27 on Google
• 1:09 on Bing

2. Avoid the 1-minute mark.

Talk about short attention span theater. According to a study by Visible Measures:

• Almost 20 percent of viewers abandon an online video after 10 seconds.
• More than 40 percent abandon it after a minute.

Visible Measures studied the abandonment rate of 40 million videos during 7 billion viewings.

Want visitors to finish your video? Keep it short.

Tip: You might also advertise your short video’s length — (1:15), for instance — to encourage viewership.

3. Don’t surprise friends, followers and fans with large files.

Use abbreviations like PDF, VID and PPT to identify links to large downloads.

4. Time it right.

The shelf life of online videos has dropped dramatically since 2008. Your video will get most of its views in the first week. So your time your release right and publicize your video fast.

5. Consider your objectives.

Choose repurposed TV spots for awareness, according to “Online Video Best Practices,” and made-for-Web videos for persuasion.

Targeting young adults? Go with custom content. Some 2.8 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds planned to purchase the product after viewing made-for-Web content.

Write for social media

Would you like to learn more ways to make your blog postings, tweets and other status updates more relevant, valuable and interesting to your readers? If so, please join me at PRSA’s Feb. 22 webinar, “Write for Social Media.” You’ll learn how to:

• Use the 70-20-10 rule for engaging your followers, plus other tips for making sure your status updates are welcome guests, not intrusive pests.
• Pass the “who cares?” test and four other techniques for becoming a resource, not a bore, on social media.
• Get retweeted and liked. Learn a dozen steps for expanding your influence and reach on Facebook and Twitter.
• Tweet like the FBI. Write dramatic, compelling status updates that draw followers and get clicks.
• Make your posts personable. There’s a reason they call it “social” media.
• Tweak your tweets. Get your message across in 140 characters or less. Plus, learn how to make 140 characters go further — and when you must come in under the character limit.

Keep up with all of my webinars.

___

Sources: “Twitter Video Streams Watched for 2 Mins,” Marketing Charts, Nov. 11, 2010

Alex Mindlin, “Drilling Down: Short Attention Spans for Web Videos,” The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2010

“Rule No. 716: Bars don’t have mayors.”

— Esquire’s “New Rules for Men”

Strunk & White were right, says viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella: Modifiers aren’t as effective as nouns and verbs. And now Zarrella has the data to prove it.

Adjectives and adverbs don’t perform as well on Facebook as nouns and verbs. Zarrella learned this by analyzing his Facebook data set to study the relationship between parts of speech and Facebook sharing.

Specifically, he says:

• Adverbs get shared nearly 3 percent less often than average.
• Adjectives get shared nearly 2 percent less often.
• Nouns get shared a little more than average.
• Verbs get shared nearly 2 percent more than average.

In Facebook, as in life, the verb is the story.

Reach readers online

Want to master the art of writing for the Web?

• Bring Ann’s team in to write Web copy for your organization.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a Web-writing workshop.
• Work with Ann to polish your Web writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on reaching readers online at RevUpReadership.com.
• Read Ann’s Web-writing learning tools.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming webinars on writing for the Web and social media.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2010 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

“Make everything a conversation instead of a one-way megaphone, and go out of your way to be interesting and valuable.”

— Kelsey Childress, writer and SEO specialist, Awen Creative

WHY FACEBOOK? 500 million people and growing, that's why.

Talk about viral: Every time someone becomes a fan of your Facebook page or comments on, clicks the “like” link on or shares your post, that action shows up in the fan’s news feed for all of their friends to see.

So once you draw people to your page, you need them to become fans and share your content. How do you get visitors to respond to your content? Here are three ways to get started:

1. Give them what they want.

Here’s what Facebook fans are looking for, according to a recent Morpace Omnibus Report:

• 37 percent want to receive coupons and discount offers.
• 35 percent want to be notified of new product availability.
• 31 percent want to learn more about the organization.
• 28 percent want to meet people with similar interests.

2. Let’s make a deal.

Deals — discounts, coupons, specials and sales — are the No. 1 reason people follow companies through social media, according to the eMarketer’s 2010 “Popular Media Study.” So offer Facebook-only discount codes, give away merchandise and otherwise give fans a deal.

3. Take them behind the velvet rope.

The No. 2 reason people follow companies through social media? To learn about new products, features or services, according to the eMarketer study. And megafans also want to get a behind-the-scenes look at the organization.

So think of your Facebook fan page as your company’s VIP room, suggests Lisa Barone, chief branding officer of Outspoken Media, in “The Facebook Page Marketing Guide.”

Fans who “join the club,” get taken behind the rope and see the inner workings of the organization. That might include, Barone suggests:

• Never-before-seen footage of a new TV commercial
• The back story on products that bombed
• Details that didn’t make it into the story
• Access to products before anyone else gets them
• Invitations to comment on or name the secret test product

Get fans to spread the word.

Facebook is by nature viral. That makes it a great place to tap social proof, or the principle that people look to what others do to guide our behavior. Letting fans know “seven of your friends bought this; six of them loved it” is a great way to boost sales.

And don’t forget: Readability, timing and word choice all affect whether fans spread the word.

Will you be our friend? Please be among the first to visit Wylie Communications on Facebookand join in the conversation.

Reach readers online

Want to master the art of writing for the Web?

• Bring Ann’s team in to write Web copy for your organization.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a Web-writing workshop.
• Work with Ann to polish your Web writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on reaching readers online at RevUpReadership.com.
• Read Ann’s Web-writing learning tools.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming webinars on writing for the Web and social media.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

___

Source: “The Facebook Page Marketing Guide — 2010,” Who’s Blogging What

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2010 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

The more you talk about yourself on Twitter, the fewer followers you’re likely to have.

Or so says viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella.

Using TweetPsyche data on more than 60,000 Twitter users, he looked at self-reference on Twitter. He found that Twitter users who don’t talk about themselves much tend to have more users.

“Want more followers?” Zarrella asks. “Stop talking about yourself.”

In other TweetPsyche research, Zarrella found that Mom was right about social media as well as so many other things. To get more followers on Twitter, Zarrella writes, you should:

• Be positive. Writing about sadness, aggression, morbid thoughts and negative emotions and feelings correlates with fewer followers. (What a shock!) So if you want more followers, cheer up.
• Be sociable. Social language correlates with more followers, Zarrella found. So use words like “you” and “we” and write more about relationships and communication.

And remember: “You” is the most retweeted word in the English language.

So on Twitter as in so much else in life, better “you” than “me.”

Get the word out on the Web

Want to master the art of reaching readers online?

• Read Ann’s Web writing learning tools.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on reaching readers online at RevUpReadership.com.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming teleseminars on writing for the Web and social media.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a Web writing workshop.
• Work with Ann to polish your Web writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

Three scientific ways to get your fans to spread the word

Dan Zarrella does it again.

The social and viral marketing scientist who brought you the science of retweets has turned his attention to what makes blog postings and articles go viral on Facebook.

Here’s what he’s learned:

1. Keep it simple.

The lower the reading grade level of the article headline, the more likely it is to get shared on Facebook, Zarrella’s research shows. For instance, headlines written at the:

• Fifth-grade level got shared 15 percent more often than average
• Ninth-grade level got shared 10 percent more often than average
• 15th-grade level got shared nearly 20 percent less often than average

2. Numbers count.

Publication headlines with numbers sell stories. That’s because they promise quantity and value. (Oddly, odd numbers sell better than even ones.)

The same thing’s true in social media. Add a numeral to the headline for your blog posting, and it will make the rounds more widely on Facebook.

“In a wide range of marketing arenas, digits have been shown to perform very well,” Zarrella writes. “They tend to help conversion rates in the form of prices. And on social news sites like Digg, ‘Top 10’ style posts have always done well.”

In Zarrella’s research, blog posting and article headlines:

• Including the numerals 1 through 9 got passed along 1.25 percent more often than average
• Without digits got shared nearly .75 percent less often than average

3. Publish on the weekend.

People post fewer articles on Facebook on the weekend. But the stories that do get posted on Saturday and Sunday get shared more often, on average, than those that get posted during the week.

Why?

One reason is that more than half of U.S. companies block Facebook, so people can only use the social network at home, Zarrella says. Also, the mainstream Facebook audience doesn’t use Facebook for work.

Zarrella found that pieces posted on:

• Saturday get passed along nearly 40 percent more often than average
• Sunday get shared more than 15 percent more often than average
• Weekdays get shared about as often as or a little less often than average

“If you want your article to be shared on Facebook,” Zarrella says, “try posting it on the weekend.”

Check out Zarrella’s Facebook-sharing research methodology.

Reach readers online

Want to get the word out via email and other online vehicles?

• Rev Up Readership members: Read the whole article.
• Invite Ann’s team in to handle an online writing or editing project.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a Web writing workshop.
• Work with Ann to polish your skills with one-on-one writing coaching.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on writing better Web copy on RevUpReadership.com.
• Study Ann’s Reaching Readers Online system.
• Find out about Ann’s next Web writing workshop or webinar.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2011 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

Newspapers still set the media agenda, Pew study says

Tempted to throw up a Facebook fan page and call it your media relations campaign? Pitching to bloggers and tweeting is way more important than sending a release to the local daily, right?

Not so fast.

After examining a week of news activity in Baltimore, the Pew Research Center found that 95 percent of stories that contained new information came from traditional media. And most of those came from … newspapers.

We’re rehashing the same old story

“Most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media — particularly newspapers,” the study’s researchers found. “These stories tended to set the media agenda for most other media outlets.”

Most “news,” it turns out, is just rehashed. Eight out of 10 stories published, in fact, were just repackaged versions of previously published pieces.

Blogs, Twitter and other social media “played only a limited role,” the researchers wrote, “mainly [as] an alert system and a way to disseminate stories from other places.”

Releases play a bigger role

News releases also play a bigger role in traditional news reporting than they have in the past.

“As the press scales back on original reporting and dissemination, reproducing other people’s work becomes a bigger part of the news media system,” the researchers wrote. “We found official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though often not noted as such.”

Want to reach bloggers? The best way may be to send a release to newspaper reporters.

Don’t ignore ‘new’ media

But don’t give up on social media, either. It expands the reach and influence of any story, regardless of its origins.

For example, where do you think I found out about this study?

On Twitter.

Reach bloggers, journalists and readers

Want to master the art of writing successful media relations materials?

• Read more: Get the full study.
• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a PR writing or editing project.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a PR writing workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to improve your PR writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next Anatomy of a News Release 2.0 webinar.
• Learn more: Study Ann’s Anatomy of a Release, Pitch and E-mailed Release toolkit. And get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
• Join the club: Get the full story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of advanced PR writing tipsheets on RevUpReadership.com.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2010 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

Timing is important, says Jakob Nielsen, “the king of usability.”

Nielsen’s preferred tweeting time is 9:01 a.m. Pacific, because that encompasses working hours from California to the United Kingdom, where most of his audience members live.

He posts a minute after the hour so his tweet will show up above those of people who set their software to post at the top of the hour.

“One of the big downsides of stream-based communication compared to email newsletters is the highly ephemeral nature of the postings,” Nielsen says. “Once they scroll off the first screen, they’re essentially 6 feet under.”

Tweet on Tuesdays.

Tuesday is by far the most popular day for Twitter activity, accounting for 15.7 percent of all tweets, according to a report on Twitter usage by social media analytics provider Sysomos.

Next most popular: Wednesday (15.6 percent) and Friday (14.5 percent).

Make that Fridays.

People tweet most often on Tuesdays. But they retweet more often on Friday — and at 4 p.m. — than at any other day or time, according to viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella.

Looking to get retweets? Friday afternoon may be the best time to tweet, Zarrella says.

Make that weekends and afternoons.

Thursday and Sunday, followed by Saturday, are the best days for getting click-throughs on your tweets, according to new research by Zarrella. He attributes this to “link fatigue” during the week, when more links are posted.

And 2 p.m. is the best time for click-through rates, according Zarrella’s research.

So when should you tweet?

Depends on what you want to accomplish.

Reach readers online

Want to get the word out on the Web?

• Get it off your desk: Bring Ann’s team in to write Web copy for your organization.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Web writing workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to polish your Web writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching sessions. And find out about Ann’s upcoming webinars on writing for the Web and social media.
• Learn more: Read Ann’s Web writing learning tools. And get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of tipsheets on reaching readers online at RevUpReadership.com.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2010 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

KANSAS CITY, MO. — April 2, 2010. PR professionals have been married to the traditional news release format since Ivy Lee created the press release more than 100 years ago.

It’s time for a new approach, says writing coach Ann Wylie, author of Anatomy of a Press Release (http://bit.ly/8BH4tg).

With 2,500 releases crossing the wires each day — that’s one every 12 seconds — the impact of traditional news release ain’t what it used to be. In fact, more than half of all traditional press releases distributed never get written about, according to PRNewswire’s own research.

Plus, Web distribution makes it possible to use releases to boost search engine rankings and reach customers and clients directly, as well as for media relations.

A new webinar aims to help PR pros, business communicators and other writers write 2.0 news releases — releases that help Google find their sites, reach readers online and more.

Program details

What: “Anatomy of a News Release,” a one-hour teleseminar (http://bit.ly/7LncXf)

Why: To help communicators write releases that get posted on portals, help Google find your site, reach readers online and more

Who: Presented by Ann Wylie (http://bit.ly/60rAFt); sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/)

When: 3 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Central, 1 p.m. Mountain, 12 p.m. Pacific) on May 13, 2009

Where: Register online (http://bit.ly/7LncXf)

In this program, Wylie will share tips on how to:

• Take advantage of online distribution to get your release posted on portals, help Google find your site, and reach customers, clients and other stakeholders online
• Write better headlines, decks and leads for your releases
• Why getting the “gobbledygook” out is even more important online than in print
• Choose the right length for your release
• Craft links that help Google find your website
• Optimize your releases for search engines and human readers

Quotes:

From workshop attendees:

“I came away with many new tips that immediately attained results — the first press release I wrote using your techniques landed a feature story in the Detroit News.” — Sharon Waldrop, director,
Fibromyalgia Association of Michigan

“I truly believe that one tip I learned from Ann has enhanced the interest of the media at least threefold, as we received better media coverage than expected at several events.” — Carl Walton,
U.S. Postal Service

“I’ve used one technique to promote my next radio interview. A publicist called me after getting an email and commented it was a great promotion.” — Elisa Southard, APR

“Writing good press releases is an art, not a science. Having said that, there is a checklist and there are objective criteria you can apply to see if you’re on track. Anyone who’s been writing release after release and needs some inspiration will benefit from Ann’s simple, well-reasoned suggestions. I’ve been writing press releases for 15 years and I got great new ideas that I was instantly able to incorporate into the next release I was writing.” — Peter Vertes,
publicity manager,
Cleveland Botanical Garden

From the trainer:

“Never mind the enormous changes in media technology, vast increases in information overload and almost complete transformation in readership habits. Virtually all of the releases I see rely on the same writing techniques PR pros have been using since Ivy Lee invented the press release in 1906.” — Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications Inc.

From the PRSA professional development director:

“Ann’s insights are especially valuable because she has worked on all sides of the communication ‘desk’ — as a corporate communicator, in a PR agency, as a magazine editor and as a consultant. Her workshops are always extremely well received by our members and other writers.” — Judy Voss, PRSA’s director of professional development

More information about the public relations writing

• Ann’s resources on the PR writing
• Information about Ann’s PR writing toolkit

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc. (http://www.wyliecomm.com/), a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Her workshops take her from Hollywood to Helsinki, helping communicators at NASA, FedEx, Motorola, H&R Block and other organizations improve their skills. She’s the author of a dozen learning tools, including  RevUpReadership.com (http://bit.ly/KJ2t3), a toolbox for writers; and Wylie’s Writing Tips (http://bit.ly/6JgZLJ), a free e-zine. Her work has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills.

About PRSA:

The Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/), headquartered in New York City, is the world’s largest professional organization for public relations practitioners. The society’s members represent business and industry, counseling firms, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. Chartered in 1948, PRSA has 116 chapters throughout the United States and extends services and professional development to the student level through the Public Relations Student Society (PRSSA) with 209 chapters on college campuses throughout the country.

For more information, contact:

Ann Wylie
Wylie Communications Inc.
816/997-8753
Ann@WylieComm.com