What is the best time to post an analysis

Anything that can have me riveted at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday is worth taking a look at if you do nothing else today. As bloggers, marketeers less wholesome creatures like SEO weasels all try to figure out how to get the most bang for the buck on what they are doing, Jake Luciani over at third rail has done some impressive statistical analysis of when is the best time to post a blog entry.

Before you roll your eyes, the numbers do not hurt, and the conclusion is strikingly easy to get, he finds that

It’s pretty clear that Tues - Friday between 10am - 2pm PST are the “hot times” for popular blog posts. Now, I didn’t filter out non-english posts and this doesn’t account for the time it took for the posts to get to the front page of these sites, but I do think it’s clear posting late at night or on the weekends + Monday is a bad idea. Your post will most likely go unnoticed. Third Rail

And just in case, Jake has a handy graphic that is starting to show up in other places, like Read Write Web (who does a great summary + bonus material on their web site here).

Mashable also has a summary + bonus material that is interesting to read as well right here.

In the longer run, it is Saturday at 6AM, meaning no one will read this according to the statistics. The other interesting thing is that if you look at my friend feed, I’ll tend to be a statistical out lier on what Jake found. I’ll post in the morning usually, my pro blog gets over 1100 people per day on average (thanks long tail), but you will see me active between say 5 AM and say 5PM (hey gotta take some time off from those social networking pressures). I’ll read, post, and comment on anything, well just about.

So take this with a grain of salt, not all is illuminated on the path of statistics, but if you are interested in human behavior models, this one makes some sense.

Tags: jake luciani, aidrss, r, best, time, post, blog, blogger, statistics, hot times, popular, posts