That TikTok trend about posting at 6pm EST for max reach - my analytics buddy proved it wrong

My friend Dan who runs a food blog told me to ignore the viral "golden hour" posting advice and instead test 9am and 2pm on Wednesdays, and my engagement jumped 40% in two weeks because the algorithm prioritizes time spent on page over posting time, has anyone else found a fake viral tip that actually hurt their growth?

4 comments

4 Comments

thea60213d ago

Wednesdays at 9am flat out works.

young.ryan13d ago

That bit about session depth getting inflated by people commuting is something I don't hear enough people talk about. Take it with a grain of salt, but I've seen the same thing with overnight sessions where people fall asleep watching a cooking video and it counts as a 45 minute deep engagement. The real wild card nobody mentions is how much playback speed changes session metrics since someone watching on 2x speed might still click through but their time on page looks half as valuable.

lewis.brian13d ago

Actually, time spent on page is a myth too, it's all about session depth.

alice92813d ago

Session depth is the one metric they push in meetings but I swear it only matters if you're selling something people actually want to read... My boss used to obsess over time on page like it was the holy grail until I showed him a user who spent 12 minutes on our contact page because they fell asleep with their phone in their hand. @thea602 mentioned Wednesdays at 9am for a reason, that's prime passive scrolling time where session depth gets inflated by people half-paying attention while they commute. If you track session depth you also have to account for browser tabs left open... I've got four tabs from Tuesday that are technically counted as deep sessions right now. The real trick is figuring out if they actually clicked anything or just opened multiple windows and wandered off.