The Power of “When” in Blog Marketing

It’s not only what you do, but when, Michael Breus explains in his new book The Power of When. There’s a best time for each of us to eat lunch, ask for a raise, write a novel, and take our meds, depending on our individual “chronotype”, Breus teaches.

Circadian biology in humans is a rather new field of study, but the concept of good timing can be traced back to the Bible. Surely you remember this passage from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die…”.

Does timing matter when it comes to marketing your business or practice using blog writing? It certainly does, maintains Melissa Albano-Davis of Grapevine Marketing. In positioning your business to take advantage of timely marketing opportunities, Albano-Davis says, “the key is to be ready and able to move on a dime”.

“If you’re not paying attention to the trends as they occur, you’re going to miss the boat…tune into major events and the types of programming that is most popular with your audience.” You can take advantage of:

• obvious events, such as the presidential debates and Superbowl
• events happening within your own community
• things that affect everyone in your area, such as the weather
  topics trending on Twitter

Consumers are more inclined to do certain things on certain days of the week, and if you can understand those habits relevant to your business, you can make sure your marketing campaign hits when the consumer is in the right frame of mind to act, suggests Chloe He in business2community.

Ms. He offers a couple of valuable timing hints having to do with weekends:

• Social media is quieter on the weekend.  Even though fewer people check their accounts, those who do are more active than they might be during the week, more likely to read articles.
• Weekends are about DIY

When it comes to the science of blog timing, the main thing people think about is when to publish a post, but that’s not the only timing consideration, Kissmetrics points out. You must also consider the timing of:

• How often you publish
• When to promote the posts
• When to repurpose the content

As blog content writers, we would do well to heed the reminder which authors from Ecclesiastes to Michael Breus so aptly offer –  it’s not only what we do, but when!