“While marketers may work Monday through Friday, Facebook is humming with activity 24-hours a day, seven days a week,” says Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow. And so, brands must adapt to their consumers’ schedules in order to optimize their engagement.

Here are the findings, along with tips about when and how to make the most of a Facebook post.

The study found that daily Facebook engagement has three peaks: early morning (7 a.m. EST), after work (5 p.m. EST) and late at night (11 p.m. EST). Therefore, posting all of your updates during the workday means you’re missing key opportunities to engage fans at non-work hours. However, not all brands’ engagement peaks at these three times — Playboy engagement peaks in the wee hours of the morning, for example — so you must work on a case-by-case basis.

Good timing on Facebook depends on the day of the week, too. Thursday and Friday have 18% more engagement than other days of the week, suggesting that Facebook is a procrastination tool when people are itching to get out of the office. But don’t start stacking all of your Facebook updates on Thursday and Friday — the study found interesting user patterns and engagement trends throughout the week that are unique to particular industries. Below, the findings are broken down by market so that you can see where entire industries are missing the mark and where — or rather, when — there’s room for improvement.

• Entertainment: Friday, Saturday and Sunday are huge, as that is when people are most inclined to see a movie or go to a concert. However, entertainment brands post twice as much content on a weekday than a Saturday or Sunday.Tip: Take advantage of the weekend.
• Media: Weekends have strong engagement for media brands, but Mondays are weak. During the study period, most posts went out during the week.Tip: Avoid Monday.
• Automotive: Auto brands see the most engagement on Sundays, but less than 8% of posts go out on that day.Tip: Capitalize on Sunday.
• Business and Finance: Engagement peaks on Wednesday and Thursday, though this industry tends to spread its posts even on Monday through Friday.Tip: Post on Wednesday.

• Retail: Sunday is a big day for engagement on the shopping and retail front, but only 5% of entertainment posts go up on Sunday. The industry’s posts lean heavily toward Friday, which has below-average engagement.Tip: Target shoppers on Sunday.
• Fashion: Engagement peaks on Thursday but dips on the weekend. The industry pushes the most content on Tuesday, the day with the lowest engagement.Tip: Optimize engagement on Thursday.
• Healthcare and Beauty: Like fashion — perhaps because consumers are shopping and preparing for the weekend — healthcare and beauty brands see the most engagement on Thursday. But a lot of content is posted on Mondays and Fridays, when engagement is lower.Tip: Post content on Thursday.
• Food and Beverage: More than the other verticals, the food and beverage brands do a good job of spreading their posts throughout the week and weekend. But in this case, engagement peaks on Tuesday and Saturday and dips on Monday and Thursday.Tip: Target Tuesday.
• Sports: Not surprisingly, especially during football season, Sunday is king for sports brands and teams on Facebook. This data is affected by the fact that Super Bowl Sunday fell during the data collection period, but Sundays remain strong during other weeks, too.Tip: Increase your post volume on Sunday.
• Travel and Hospitality: The highest engagement occurs on Thursday and Friday, when the week is winding down and people are looking to escape from the office.Tip: Get these eyeballs at the end of the week.

Joe Ciarallo, Buddy Media’s director of communications, says a lot of smart brands already target their audiences when they’re most engaged. For those who don’t, Ciarallo says they should consider scheduling Facebook posts to go live during times of high engagement at night and on weekends.

Be Concise

The data indicates that the length of the post can determine engagement just as much as the time of the post. The bottom line: Keep it short and sweet. Posts with 80 characters or less — the length of a short tweet — garnered 27% more engagement than posts that were more than 80 characters. But brevity is far from a common practice — only 19% of posts in the study were shorter than 80 characters.

And while the content should be short, the URL probably shouldn’t be — posts with a full-length URL had three times the engagement of their shortened bit.ly, ow.ly and tinyurl counterparts. The reason is likely because readers want to know where the link will take them. Ciarallo says a brand-specific URL shortener, like bddy.me or on.mash, keeps a post short while also providing context.

Ask For Engagement

Advice for Smaller Brands

These findings are insightful and can help brands better target their consumers, but it is important to note that the brands studied are all large and well-established. While URL shortening is a good idea for all brands, the day and time findings may not apply to businesses of all sizes within each industry.

For small businesses, it’s important to balance the data above with what you know about your own brand, based on Facebook Insights and your own experiences with your Page. “Small brands can take away some best practices from this, but remember that the data set is all large brands,” Ciarallo says. “Still, a boutique hotel owner could look at the hospitality section and see how it can help his Facebook marketing.”

He also says it’s important to realize the social marketing space is constantly evolving, and these statistics can change in a matter of months. If every brand begins to post when the engagement is high, then engagement either will increase because of the optimization, or it may decrease because there’s so much noise at the high-engagement times. Only time will tell for the long term.

“This is 200 large brands over two weeks, so it’s a large data set, but things are moving fast,” meaning your Facebook marketing program must be flexible, Ciarallo says. Though this is the first study of its kind that Buddy Media has publicly released, Ciarallo foresees future reports like this one to help brands maximize engagement in an ever-changing marketing environment.

What engagement tips have you picked up from your Facebook Page? Tell us in the comments.

Disclosure: Buddy Media is a Mashable sponsor.

*Buddy Media did not disclose which of its 600 client brands were included in the study, but the company has a lengthy roster of enterprise clients, including W Hotels, Target, American Express, Playboy and the Food Network.

When asked why they “friending” a brand online, the top reason consumers gave was “I hoped to get discounts.” Another popular reason was because it was suggested by a friend online.

Take this as a clear signal that consumers expect something in return for their “friendship.” And that “something” is not an announcement from the CEO or news about company profits. This survey shows it’s about cold, hard cash.

The survey also found that consumers prefer Facebook as the top means for brands to communicate with consumers, by a factor of 41 percent. The next highest preferred method was Twitter, at 18 percent. But the most preferred way consumers want to communicate with brands? None at all, with 48 percent. Still, when added together (including MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare and ‘Other’) it appears that consumers are, for the most part, willing to hear from businesses during their regular digital media consumption.

1. IQ Quiz Ads

While Facebook has spent the past year trying to cut down on the number of misleading advertisements on the site, the fact remains that a small percentage of users still get duped into purchasing services they don’t really want. The IQ Quiz Scam has become ubiquitous on the Facebook Platform, and those users who install applications can expect to see an advertisement for an IQ Quiz Scam at some point. In December we covered one application developer who was using spammy techniques to get new users to install their application and ultimately click on the IQ Quiz advertisements.

As soon as you click on one of the ads, you’ll be brought to a site where you’re asked up to 10 questions which are relatively easy to answer. You will then be prompted to enter your phone number to view the results.Don’t enter your phone number! If you do, you will be charged upwards of $10 a week directly to your phone bill. While most phone companies are willing to refund you for your first purchase, they won’t do it after the first occurrence. That’s because the phone companies generate billions of dollars each year off of these types of transactions.

If you want to protect yourself from IQ quiz scams, do not enter your phone number into any sites outside of Facebook.

2. I’ve Been Robbed! Western Union Me Money!

You’re browsing around Facebook and suddenly one of your friends IMs you to tell you that they’re stuck in another country, they’ve been robbed, don’t have a wallet, and need money to get out of the country. It’s a horrible situation but what are the odds that they found a computer to log on to in order to instant message you? Even worse, what are the odds that one of your friends who was traveling abroad got robbed and wasn’t able to find anybody to help them out?

I’ve been with people who’ve lost their wallet abroad and needed to get money sent via Western Union, however if the person can get access to Facebook, they probably can access a phone. While you should always help out your friends, you can avoid being duped by international fraudsters by asking your friend to call you in order to wire the money. Unless your friend is in the middle of a jungle in the Congo, they should be able to call you.

Most of the times that this happens, it is a scammer who has stolen your friend’s account and is systematically going through and IMing each of their friends to try and get money wired to them. Don’t fall for it!

3. Facebook Phishing Landing Pages

One of the most common ways Facebook accounts get compromised is through simple phishing scams. The way it works is that a user’s account is compromised by a hacker and the hacker then uses that account to automatically post links on each of that user’s friends’ walls. Sometimes the system will send messages to the friends such as “Check out this funny video of you!” with a link that redirects to a page with a fake Facebook login page (as pictured above).

It’s pretty straight forward, and it’s easy to avoid, however countless people have fallen for this scam. The easiest way to tell if it’s a scam is by looking at the URL of the page you land on. The best way to protect yourself is, anytime you see a Facebook login page, leave it and go to http://www.facebook.com in your browser. That way you can ensure you are logging in to the correct site.

4. Koobface Worm That Automatically Hijack Your Account

We’ve written about the Koobface worm on a number of instances, and while Facebook has worked to aggressively prevent the worm, it continues to spread today. The scam is pretty straight forward. In the attack, a user will receive a message from what appears to be one of their friends. The message will say things like “Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf On The Street; Examiners Caught Downloading Grades From The Internet; Hello; You must see it!!! LOL. My friend catched you on hidden cam; Is it really celebrity? Funny Moments” and many others.

Included in the message will be a link to a page which appears to be a YouTube video. If you click on the video, you will be prompted to “upgrade your Flash player now” and will then be asked to download a file which contains the Koobface worm. If you download and install the file, your computer will automatically log in to Facebook and send similar messages to your friends. The best way to avoid this scam is to avoid all links that are posted on your wall or in your inbox that are out of the ordinary. Also, never download a file after clicking on a link.

To learn more about the Koobface worm, check out the information at the Kapersky Lab.

5. Other Malware Applications And Links

While we’ve attempted to highlight the primary scams, hackers and scammers are constantly evolving their strategies to steal passwords, and take over computers. The best thing to do is always be weary of strange links posted to your profile or inbox as well as avoid downloading any files that you’re prompted to, no matter what. While many of the scams on Facebook are harmless to your computer, its important to protect yourself against any viruses and worms.

Some Facebook applications have used toolbars among other things to make money from their application. Some of these toolbars will significantly damage your computer. The bottom line is this: be on guard any time you see something suspicious. If you do happen to fall for a scam though, make sure to immediately change your password. If you aren’t able to access your account because you were phished and your password was reset, fill out this form.

At the time, and to my surprise, mention of Facebook Credits was minimal at best—but as more information becomes available, it’s my prediction that Facebook Credits will be the NEXT major step Facebook takes toward unifying the online experience from simple, social interactions to true social commerce (or when tied to Facebook commerce, labeled as fCommerce).

Before we dive into where I see that going, here’s a quick recap of what Facebook Open Graph is and how it lays the foundation for Facebook Credits to revolutionize the online experience for users and marketers alike.

An Open Graph Recap

The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. A website owner can add a few lines of code to connect his or her site to Facebook, so what a user does off Facebook provides Facebook behavioral data about that user. At its simplest form is the Facebook Like button that has made its way onto websites of all types and sizes.

For example, if a Facebook user visits IMDB.com (one of the more than 1 million partner websites utilizing the Open Graph protocol) and Likes the Mad Men TV show, this interaction would immediately update the user’s Facebook profile with additional psychographic data on his likes and interests.

When the same user is logged into Facebook, that updated psychographic profile data becomes very beneficial for marketers. During the fourth season of Mad Men, Unilever created a series of six retro commercials to be aired during the show. Unilever can now leverage that Like on IMDB to create a very targeted ad campaign on Facebook. This is why Facebook Ads can be highly effective as they target both demographic and psychographic data.

But the use of Open Graph gets even more interesting.

When that user visits another Open Graph partner site such as Amazon.com, Amazon knows the user likes Mad Men based on what he did on IMDB and can now showcase books, music and other products such as the Mad Men soundtrack. With over 1,000,000 sites currently incorporating Open Graph, Facebook becomes the hub of an amazing amount of data and provides websites the ability to truly personalize the social commerce experience to each individual visitor if the site integrates with Facebook.

Enter Facebook Credits

For those not familiar with Facebook Credits, they are a virtual currency you can use to buy virtual goods in over 100 games and applications on the Facebook platform such as Farmville with approximately 54,000,000 monthly active users and Mafia Wars with over 22,000,000 monthly active users.

But based on my prediction, Facebook Credits will no longer just be for games but also for actual real-world transactions!

As Casey Hibbard pointed out in her article entitled Cold Stone Transforms the Ice Cream Social With Facebook, companies are finding creative ways to leverage virtual gifts to engage with fans. Even though Cold Stone Creamery used a different payment processing system, the concept is the same and the results were amazing with 66,000 new fans and $10,000 in incremental sales.

It’s clear that people are comfortable with virtual goods, but to take this to the next level, Facebook Credits will need to translate into real-world products or services.

Today, the Facebook Open Graph protocol comes with 8 social plugins to simplify the integration for website owners to leverage Open Graph. One not in the suite YET is ecommerce Social Plugin—also known as Facebook Credits.

This is where the future takes hold and how I can see this exploding into a completely personalized and comprehensive social commerce experience, powered by Facebook, driving a plethora of data back to Facebook and into the hands of marketers (which of course drives more revenue to Facebook).

According to Amy Porterfield’s article entitled 3 Studies That Show Facebook’s Marketing Potential, 35% of ecommerce companies had already implemented the Facebook Like social plugin indicating the Open Graph protocol has been rapidly adopted by many businesses such as Levi’s Facebook Friends Store, and demonstrating the potential for rapid penetration of other similar Facebook programs such as Facebook Credits.

Reflecting back to the previously mentioned user’s experience on Amazon, the Buy Now button next to that Mad Men soundtrack becomes Visa, Amex, PayPal, and oh, Facebook Credits. In theory, a user could complete a transaction on these sites using Facebook Credits.

Now of course, for every transaction you make, Facebook is making 30% of that saleAND collecting an amazing amount of data on the user. Facebook and partner sites know you like certain things but if you BUY things that support those interests, Facebook now knows you REALLY like those products. This changes everything!Facebook Ads would now have another level of targeting such as behavioral ads based off prior transactions.

Move Over, Visa Rewards

The Internet is becoming more saturated and consumers are going to get even more impatient. Facebook Open Graph websites today can personalize the experience for the user based on his Facebook profile. However, businesses are going to need loyalty and incentive offers to guarantee return visits to the site.

If I’m an active user on your site, give me some recognition. I’ll take Facebook Credits as a reward for things I do on your site or even in your brick-and-mortar store. I can then use those credits to process transactions both on- and offline.

Today, I use my Visa card and collect points based on how much I spend and can use those points to order “free” products. I continue to use my Visa rewards card instead of a competing credit card to make a purchase because of this incentive to earn products or services. Grocery stores also have loyalty programs that encourage repeat purchases because the more I shop, the more rewards I’ll receive when I use my loyalty card.

What would happen if one card provided both loyalty and the ability to complete transactions and had the huge base of users like Facebook does?

For example, if I accepted Facebook Credits on my website or in my store and it “cost” the customer 100 Facebook Credits to purchase the item, I would get 70 credits paid and Facebook would take the other 30 credits as their fee. This is similar to how Apple.com takes a percentage of revenue with their paid apps and other credit card companies charge merchants transaction fees. Definitely Facebook’s 30% is quite a bit more aggressive. The fee Facebook charges is definitely one area that would need to be analyzed before this could become widely adopted.

Now, what if the 100 Facebook Credits the consumer used were earned credits from activities such as commenting on websites, Liking products and other behaviors? No money changes hands but activity takes place and the user is rewarded with Facebook Credits to make the transaction possible—activity that further enhances the website’s brand and improves advertising targeting

Paid in Data

Ultimately Facebook becomes the new payment processor + loyalty program of the future and no other current service comes close to competing.

The behavioral data that’s collected through the implementation of Open Graph and the ultimate penetration of ecommerce is priceless from a marketing perspective and would likely help businesses significantly increase transactions and revenueas the targeting of consumers would be spot-on.

To make this happen:

• Facebook will launch a new social plugin (ecommerce).
• Companies will integrate the Facebook Connect ecommerce program into their websites and start leveraging Facebook Credits as their new loyalty program, as well as provide an end-to-end commerce platform.
• Facebook supports real-world transactions connecting well over 500 million users to the consumption of pretty much anything. Facebook credits currently cost $5.00 for 50 credits, $10.00 for 100 credits and so forth, and can now even be purchased at 7-Eleven, over 20,000 CoinStar machines, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and as of this week, my grocery store, to name a few.
• Credits become an alternate form of currency on both transaction-based sites and brick-and-mortar stores.

Today you can use Facebook Credits to buy a virtual rack of lamb, and if my prediction comes true, you’ll soon use your Facebook Credits card to purchase a real rack of lamb from your local supermarket.

How Facebook integrates Facebook Credits into more than just gaming is of great interest. It was the many conversations at the f8 conference with product managers that inspired my vision for an all-encompassing web commerce experience with Facebook as the common thread.

Jay Baer, author of The Now Revolution, states that “Facebook wants to be the plumbing of the Internet—indispensable and everywhere. Credits are their gateway to being relevant in three dimensions. People often cite that Facebook would be the third-largest country in the world, based on its user base. So, for them to create their own currency shouldn’t be a surprise. If Credits get even a minor toehold as a payment mechanism, the opportunity for Facebook to weave itself even tighter into the fabric of day-to-day life will get a huge boost.”

Conclusion

This is the future of social commerce! A place to bring social interaction and consumer spending together to breach the “walls” of the Internet. Get yourself ready and start thinking about how you’re engaging with customers today. If you want to take a break, go and experiment with how Facebook Credits work. That way, when my prediction comes true, you’ll be ready.

Sorry Visa, but your slogan “It’s everywhere you want to be” just might become the new tagline for Facebook Credits.

What do you think? Do you feel Facebook Credits could become the next transformative step Facebook takes toward unifying the online experience from simple, social interactions to true social commerce?

Leave your comments in the box below.

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