Is there a disconnect between your content strategy and your content performance?

Ky Hardin, a data analyst at BuzzFeed, Inc., has just posted an interesting article on when content is read vs. when content is generally published that opens a new way to think about when to publish.

The article, How Time of Day Affects Content Performance, offers some empirical proof that some of those 6 AM emails sent out each day may be better read if sent in the late afternoon.

The BuzzFeed research team noticed that well-read articles in terms of the amount of views received in a single hour over the past year saw the biggest spikes in traffic within the same two-hour period of the day, even when the topics were very dissimilar. That’s not to say that content that is not interesting and sharable will get read more – good content gets read more than bad at any time of day.  But their research illustrates the pivotal role that time of day can play in readability. 

BuzzFeed research identified a clear pattern that people browse the web more frequently during certain hours of the day.
As Mr. Hardin points out, we all know that web traffic fluctuates at certain times of the day.  Traditional wisdom for email and other outbound web marketing has been to release information at the start of the day to optimize opens and click throughs.  It is interesting to note that based on their analysis of over 300 million monthly visitors to BuzzFeed and their partner networks, page views start building early, but continue to rise steadily until late afternoon before they begin to decline.

The shape of the time of day page views curve is similar, regardless of the the day you're looking at. The peaks and troughs shift slightly depending on other factors, but the overall shape remains the same.
The chart below plots the total number of page views during each hour of the day.

This pattern was very predictable over the 1,700 days that were reviewed for this study – 86% of the days followed the above pattern.  The data gets interesting when you plot the time of day articles are published against that viewership pattern.  As you can see in the second chart below, article publishing increases at a more accelerated rate until mid-morning and falls off, despite a brief rebound in the early afternoon.

The conclusion of this study is that there is a lot of content that isn’t given a chance to reach its full reader potential based on this publishing pattern.

Marketers need to recognize that content performance based on page views may not match their pre-conceived ideas or “traditional wisdom”. This study indicates that the rules have changed.   Other studies have drawn different conclusions on best day of the week and best times, so every marketer should carefully assess the times of day that people most frequently visit their sites or open their emails and adjust their publishing schedule accordingly.

Use your analytics software to identify when your content is read by time zones and adjust accordingly. If your customer base is focused on the east coast, where the majority of the country lives, your publishing strategy could be quite different than if you focus on the west coast or Europe.

You might also want to consider how they find your content.  Do they click from Facebook, or do they subscribe via email? These answers will affect how this data applies to you.

When in doubt,  you should test to see what works best for you.  Importantly, this study reinforces that while general tendencies can be useful in initial planning, the best programs tailor their strategies to the individual patterns of their demographic target(s).

Good publishing!


-- Don Morgan

Don Morgan is VP Communications for PSAMA and Head Rainmaker at Raindance Consulting, a business development and social media consultant in Seattle.

Tearing the Lid Off Your Logo

Guest Post by Chris Donaldson, Hand Crank Films

I’ve just finished reading Start with Why by Simon Sinek, which dovetails nicely with Don’s recent post about ‘The Power of Habit’. This is an especially relevant book as well, as it explores what it means to be alive and create transformation both in your personal life and in business.

The premise is clear: we must discover and communicate the WHY behind what we do to be effective and successful.
WHY is the looking glass we should all be holding up to the world to determine next choices and next steps, especially if we’re stuck on a project or need a massive dose of inspiration. People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

Most people know WHAT they do and HOW they do it. But only the major players, the luminaries, understand the critical value of the WHY.
Southwest Airlines, for example, knows WHAT their company is – an inexpensive airline. It knows HOW they do it: quick simple flights with very little frills. But in order to really move the needle, they started with the WHY: To be a travel champion for the masses. To empower average people with possibility. To live and breathe this cause day after day, year after year, decade after decade.

The result? They’ve turned a profit every year, while other airlines have been brought to their knees.

A cautionary tale on the flipside is TiVo. This company launched in 1997 with a remarkable new device that had the advertising industry (us) shaking in its boots. Skipping commercials, after all, was sacrilege.

This was powerful stuff, but TiVo could never capture the WHY behind their message. They spent huge sums of money communicating the WHAT: We pause live TV and let you record shows. But most people didn’t grasp the value and the company only moved 48,000 units the first year. Today, they’ve been pushed out by the cable companies and marginalized in the very space they invented.

Imagine instead if TiVo had started with something like: We let you take control of your life again. The WHY would have been answered. A cause would have been communicated. And a market might have been dominated.


But how do we start with WHY?

The guy who started Hand Crank Films, Max Kaiser, calls this ‘tearing the lid off the logo’. Simon Sinek calls it ‘living in the Golden Circle’. It’s a way of codifying your thinking to focus on the emotional benefit of what you do from the inside out. It starts with taking a deep look at WHY your company does what it does – what really makes you tick, or your story turn, or the reason we get out of bed every morning in the first place.

It’s about remembering that most people don’t buy WHAT you do or HOW you do it, but WHY you do it. If your intent is gold, people want to trade.


Here are five ideas to get you or your clients on the WHY path:

1. Define your WHY in a few sentences. For my company, Hand Crank Films, it’s about uncovering the deep meaning behind brands, and then communicating that through the power of film.
2. Do a WHY analysis on everything. If it doesn’t meet the litmus test in #1, stop doing it. It’s a waste of time and a waste of mission. Remember that the smallest tasks deserve the biggest WHY.
3. Similarly, start communicating the WHY to everyone, everywhere. Stand and shout from the rooftops.
4. Work the WHY into your culture. If you’re a company of one or 1,001, every person needs to beat the drum. That’s what makes Southwest Airlines tick.
5. Have fun. Getting to the bottom of WHY just might be the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done in business.

Starting with "why" is an iterative process. It’s not going to happen overnight.
Right now, for example, we just launched a new website, but we’re already looking for ways to improve our WHY message. Because it’s not yet good enough.

It’s not about a box that sits on top of a TV set. Or about the cheapest flights to Memphis. It’s about peeling away the product specifications, the stickers, and the last minute value adds to find the WHY that inspires us and our clients. The soul behind the mark that, if we’re lucky, creates a sea change. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I strongly encourage you to check out Start With Why. And ask yourself the WHY question.

Want to know more about The Golden Circle and how it can work for your company? Check out this video from the TED conference.





Chris Donaldson is the Producer at Hand Crank Films, a Seattle film company that helps answer ‘why’ for our clients. We’re expert at one thing: Telling Stories. Your stories. Contact him at chrisd@handcrankfilms.com or call 360.383.6376.

New Social TV Apps means new opportunities for marketers to build engagement . . . and sales.

During this year’s Super Bowl, Twitter recorded a record 12,233 tweets per second at the end of the game. More and more people are embracing “social TV” by tweeting or updating their Facebook status while watching programming, and companies are jumping on the trend with apps to enhance the television experience -- and, of course, to sell more ads.

According to Nielsen, 68% of tablet users and 63% of smartphone users say they're on their devices at least "several times a week" while watching TV.

These trends make Social TV a market ripe for ad dollars. While the easiest tactic is to add a Twitter hashtag to a commercial, today’s digital consumers want more. And a new crop of social-TV startups are jumping onto the technology bandwagon to provide it.

One of the better known social TV apps is GetGlue. GetGlue is a social network for sharing with friends what you’re watching, listening to, or reading. As you check-in to and rate your favorite shows, movies, and music you can unlock rewards, including exclusive stickers. As GetGlue gets to know your personal tastes, it will show you suggestions based on your preferences, what your friends like, and what’s trending on GetGlue.

As you do certain things on GetGlue you will be rewarded with a variety of stickers for your achievements. While some stickers are easily unlocked, others are more mysterious and require you to figure out how to unlock them. Some are only unlocked by checking-in on a specific day during a specific time--these stickers are limited and will not be available outside of this window.

Some stickers you unlock have associated specials or rewards provided by GetGlue partners (also known as advertisers). Examples include a discount on merchandise or an opportunity to win a free item in a drawing. If you are eligible for the reward you will be notified by an application screen or by email.

Following one of the basic rules of gamification, GetGlue identifies users that are especially passionate about specific items by awarding them the title of “Guru”. Guru is awarded to the user who has the richest level of interaction for the given item based on a point system. Each item can only have one Guru, so loyalty is built by the user being vigilant and regularly checking in to the system so that other users cannot steal your title.

Viggle is a loyalty program that lets viewers earn points toward rewards for checking into the television shows they’re watching. Currently available for Apple iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, Viggle automatically identifies what television shows its users are watching and awards them points when they check-in. Viggle users can redeem their points in the app’s rewards catalogue for movie tickets, music, gift cards and much more.

You earn points by checking into any TV show you're watching. The number of points you get depends on the length of the show. For example, you'll get 60 points for each hour of television you watch. Daily blog posts identify programs with check-ins that are worth more points. If a show has bonus points, you'll get those points by watching for at least 10 minutes.

You can also get points by watching videos and playing games in the app, and even for inviting a friend or sharing your check-ins to Facebook or Twitter. Today’s featured rewards represent who’s who of television advertisers – Starbucks, JC Penney, Target, Burger King and Papa John’s Pizza, to name a few.


Miso hopes to “make TV watching better” by making TV more fun, more social and more useful. The Miso app allows users to comment on and “like” check-ins from anyone else using the app, and it will send notifications via email to let them know when their check-ins have been commented on. The new app also lets users designate “favorite” shows which they can “quick check-in” to. In addition to its integration with Facebook and Twitter as a way to find friends, Miso now lets users choose friends from their address book to invite to use the app.

In December, Miso rolled out the latest update to its second-screen application that allows users, networks and brands to create second-screen experiences that go along with shows they’re watching. The new product, called SideShows, can display user-generated content that is synced with what’s happening on the screen.

So for instance, a SideShow creator can highlight interesting quotes that happen during a show, insert trivia questions, point viewers to associated content on third-party websites and the like. And if the creator happens to be the network that broadcasts the show, the platform will allow the SideShow creator to insert ads that match product placement in the show. Networks that have used the platform include Showtime, FOX, Food Network, DIRECTV’s Audience Network, Halogen, Science Channel and CBS Television Distribution.

While SideShows will allow networks to create interesting companion experiences to on-screen TV content, what’s probably most important here is the crowdsourced aspect of the platform. It will initially be available to Miso superusers — which, let’s be honest, are those most likely to actually create SideShows — but will soon be opened up to others according to CEO Somrat Niyogi. It will basically allow anyone to create and own the second screen experience, even if they have no connection to the show whatsoever.

What’s next for Social TV apps? Who knows? Maybe we’re not seeing the death of television after all. Simply its evolution!


-- Don Morgan

Don Morgan is VP Communications for PSAMA and Head Rainmaker at Raindance Consulting, a business development and social media consultant in Seattle.

Practice makes perfect (or sometimes imperfect). Understanding how habits are formed can change your life and your business.

When Paul O’Neill was named CEO of Alcoa, his first address to stockholders talked about the importance of building worker safety habits in the organization.

The audience was stunned. They had come looking for answers on why Alcoa was underperforming, but O’Neill offered no promises on rightsizing, inventory management, synergy, or other popular buzzwords in management. He only spoke about the importance of workplace safety figures, prompting one prominent investor to say “The board put a crazy hippie in charge and he’s going to kill the company.”

Within a year of O’Neill’s speech, Alcoa’s profits would hit a record high. By the time O’Neill retired in 2000, the company’s annual net income was five times larger than before he arrived, and its market capitalization had risen by $27 billion.

That’s just one of the interesting business anecdotes in the new bestseller, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg, an investigative reporter for The New York times.

When I first saw the title, I thought it was intriguing, but was unsure if it would really give me any practical insights into why it is so hard to change our bad habits, or to capitalize on the good ones. But the more I read, the more I realized what a great message for business the book reveals.

Duhigg takes a serious look at the science of habit formation and change. “Once you understand that habits can change,” he concludes, “you have the freedom to remake them. If you focus on changing or cultivating keystone habits, you can cause widespread shifts”. He shows that by understanding the nature of habits we can instill to influence group behavior, turning companies into profit makers and ensuring the success of social movements.

He makes his case by presenting actual examples from businesses that have used their understanding of how habits form and impact other behaviors. Readers will learn how our purchase habits can tell Target which of its female customers are pregnant, even before they have told their friends and family; how Howard Schultz built an open and inviting culture at Starbucks by training baristas to practice how to react under the pressure of long lines and impatient customers; how Rick Warren build a small congregation into one of the biggest mega- churches in the world; and why a 1987 fire in King’s Cross Station in London’s Underground led to the death of 31 people because of bad corporate habits that had developed informally over the years.

Habit formation is based on a simple idea the author calls “the habit loop,” whereby a “cue” automatically leads to a behavioral “routine” that results in a “reward”. Understanding this cue—routine—reward pattern can help us understand such diverse behaviors as why people buy a certain brand of toothpaste, become addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, and prefer certain songs on the radio, even if we dislike the singer.

One way behavior can become habitual, as noted in the book, is through repetition. If we acquire a bad habit this way it is very hard to change, because our response to the cue is so ingrained in our minds. We have to recognize the cues and find an alternative response to achieve the same reward.

Duhigg gives the example of the success of former N.F.L. coach Tony Dungy, who, with lots and lots of practice, taught his players a small number of important moves they could perform without thinking, even at the most crucial point in the game. Super Bowl victories for Tampa Bay and Indianapolis can be partially attributed to his understanding that bad habits can be overcome by learning new routines and practicing them over and over again.

The book’s premise isn’t perfect. We know that compulsions and addictions to alcohol and nicotine can impact personal behaviors that involve dependence on a chemical substance. In those cases, the behaviors have become so physically or emotionally rewarding that they’re nearly impossible to resist.

The idea that habits influence organizational behavior is an interesting concept for any company trying to build a culture, or change a culture, to promote consistent behaviors that can impact the bottom line.

Along the way, the author demonstrates other aspects of behavioral change, such as the influence that strong personal relationships can combine with the peer pressure from informal ties to create social change. His example of how Rosa Parks became the tipping point for the civil rights movement is a fascinating story of how the habits of societies can effect social change.

All in all, this book goes into the must-read category for me and my business. And I also see a great value in personal growth as well. In recent years, many self-help theorists have developed effective interventions to help people improve their lives, only some of which involve breaking bad habits in the way Duhigg describes. Understanding the “habit loop” and how it can impact your organization and your life is the first step.

The author describes The Power of Habit as a “framework for understanding how habits work and how they might change. Some habits yield easily to analysis and influence. Others are more complex and require more study. And for others, change is a process that never fully concludes”.

What about your company? Any bad habits that could make it more efficient, more profitable, or simple a better place to work?

Maybe this book can get you started in the right direction.


-- Don Morgan

Don Morgan is VP Communications for PSAMA and Head Rainmaker at Raindance Consulting, a business development and social media consultant in Seattle.