Why you should never, ever use a question mark on Twitter or LinkedIn (infographic)

Is it best to share on Tuesday or Thursday? Does it matter if your tweet is 15 words or 25? And does using a question mark really reduce your chances of viral growth?

Content marketing company Compendium ran a study with more than 200 companies, checking on how social media marketers can get optimum engagement in business-to-business and business-to-consumer conversations. The study looked at factors such as word count, punctuation, time of posting, and day of the week of posting to determine success factors.

It turns out that who you’re marketing to makes a massive difference.

For instance, if you’re talking to consumers, Monday and Wednesday are best on Twitter, and LinkedIn is better on Monday. But if your company is marketing to other businesses, post to LinkedIn on Sunday, and to Twitter on Wednesday. And while hashtags are great for consumer-focused posts, they really don’t work at all for B2B marketers.

The one great commonality?

Question marks significantly reduce clickthrough on posts aimed at both consumers and business clients. Posts with question marks get between 25 and 52 percent fewer clicks than other posts.

Here’s the full infographic:

photo credit: paurian via photopin cc