Ed Healy

I’ve been tracking various key words on Twitter for some months. My hope is that I can determine when chatter about certain topics spikes, so that I can better help promote the products and services of the companies I work with.

For instance, I have a new podcast coming out this week. It’s a show about game design and game mastering, for people who enjoy roleplaying games. I could announce the show at any time, but why not make the announcement at a time when people are most likely talking about RPGs and podcasts already? Furthermore, why not release each episode during that ‘sweet spot’, if one exists?

Let’s see if one does.

Mentions of the terms “rpg” or “roleplaying game” by day of the week:

Fridays are a good day for RPGs – with 20% more chatter than on Thursday. RPG discussion appears to taper off steadily thereafter, with a nice little spike on Wednesdays.

This makes a lot of sense. Most roleplaying happens on the weekends, when people have more free time. If I wanted to give them something to talk about, I might want to do it just before the weekend, so it’s fresh in their minds before they get together with friends or chat about their gaming experiences online.

I looked at what time of day people are talking about RPGs as well. 9 AM and 6 PM PST see definite spikes in RPG conversation. Whatever the reason, those are the times I need to remember when deciding when to talk about my RPG-related news.

Mentions of the terms “podcast” by day of the week:

Unlike RPGs, there doesn’t appear to be a definitive spike in chatty about podcasts on any given day of the week. The weekend is slightly more active, but the percentage of chatty on a day-to-day basis stays pretty consistent.

Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in volume of chat during the day. Podcast discussions seem to be a little more popular in the morning than the evening, but not enough to make any real hard judgments.

The Verdict

I’ve decided that I’ll release my new show on Thursday afternoon. This will give people something to talk about on Friday, and it will be fresh in their minds as they go into the weekend. On Fridays, I’ll post on various forums and news sites about each episode, driving conversation about the show so I can take advantage of the Friday spike.

On the Wednesday before each episode releases, I’ll pre-promote the show on forums in a similar manner, riding the mid-week wave of RPG conversation to remind people that a new episode will be coming out the next day.