Content sharing: get your voice heard

Dan Zarrella spent two years collecting and analyzing data and put together his best practices for the best days and times for tweeting, facebook posting, blog posts, emails, etc.

Frontline Ink will be using this information to increase value for our clients' blog posts, e-newsletters, tweets and more.

See some of the highlights below or listen to the complete webinar here.

Dan opens with a concept called "contra-competitive timing,” which basically says that when the noise dies down, your voice is more likely to be heard.

Twitter:

• Most re-tweetable hours are between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Click-through rates are highest on Saturdays and Sunday, and lowest on Mondays and Thursdays
• Tweet content frequently, just use varying language. For example, tweet the title, then use a pull quote, then tweet with a new pull quote. But...
  
• When you're sharing your own info, give some time between tweets

Facebook

• Weekends are best for Facebook sharing

Email

• Open rates are higher on weekends and early mornings
  
• Click-through rates are higher on weekends

Blogging

• Know your audience: men are more likely to read at night, and women are more likely to read in the morning
• People are more likely to read your blog during the week, but more likely to post on Facebook on the weekend
• Posts that go up around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. get the most views, but comments spike on weekends
• Links (which help SEO) tend to be highest on Monday and Thursdays
• To increase links, publish early in the morning
• Blog a ton! The more you blog, the more views you get

It's All Well and Good

This ad demonstrates a common error with well and good. Good is an adjective and adjectives are used to describe nouns. Well is an adverb and is used to modify a verb.

In case I lost you with the parts of speech talk, think of it this way: you can have a good thing (noun) but an action (verb) is done well.

I slept (verb) well.
I had a good sleep (noun).

I am doing (verb) well today.
I had a good day (noun).

But the question I know you're really asking is if those suspendease they're advertising actually work "good" and well, I just don't know.

Spelling Tips

If you're in need of a little humbling, take this quiz on 25 commonly misspelled words.

Then, if you find out you need a little help, check out these spelling tips from a former spelling champion.

Out of Meet

Often, I discuss commonly confused words--words that have multiple spellings or meanings that are used incorrectly. I hesitate to call this one "common" though, so we'll just stick with confused.

If Grammar Were a Bear

I hear it all the time: "Grammar is such a bear!"

Now, if grammar actually were a bear, he wouldn't be an intimidating beast to be feared, or alas--hated. He'd be a Smokey-the-Bear type with a brown hat, fuzzy fur and retracted claws. He'd bear frequent slips in informal communication with patience and tip his hat to the most refined speakers and the slang users alike. He'd offer to bear the grammatical burden of his friend if the load got too heavy.

And occasionally, he'd step in to correct commonly confused words, thereby preventing language fires. So if Mike Boyd and Tex Stuart (of the above article) did "bear all in the name of entrepreneurial inspiration," he'd applaud their endurance. But if they did in fact, bare all, he'd gently request that they refrain.

Thank you, Jill, for the contribution.

Commonly Confused Words: It's versus Its

All right, blog followers, let's discuss one of the more confusing (and yet still simple) nuances of the English language: the difference between its and it's.

I understand where the confusion comes from. It seems counter intuitive that the dog chews its bone (not it's bone) since we've always been taught that the apostrophe indicates ownership. Isn't it the dog's bone? I hear ya, believe me, but trust your geeky friend on this one and go with this rule:

it is=it's
it has= it's


Use its for everything else. That's all there is to it.

So for the quote above, do you see the problem? It got it's right the second time, but the first its should be it's too.