The Social Computing lab at HP has released a research paper that finds a strong correlation between the popularity of content on Digg and the time when that submission was made.
The research confirms that the best time to submit a new story on Digg is a weekday afternoon in the US.
So if you are based on the other side of the world (e.g. India), make sure you postpone all Digg submissions until midnight for maximum diggs exposure and do take a Digg-break on weekends.
Afternoons in America are the best time to Digg.
Let’s try understanding the first graph – while the digg count and promoted story count are 4-5X higher in the day time than night, the submitted count is only around 3X higher. So despite higher competition, the promoted story ratio is much higher in the day time.
The paper is available for download as PDF on the HP Labs site. Thanks CNET.
Related: Know When People Digg Your Stories
Find this article at: http://labnol.org/?p=5407
Reader Comments
I look forward to similar posts on stumble upon, Amit u posted an image on flickr regarding the Stumble upon effect i.e how SU was contributing to your traffic. Will you share what other social tools(twitter, FF, FB etc) have been a substantial contributor to the traffic??
Written by Supreet on 11.14.08
Thanks for sharing this great info. It really may help to gain some diggs.
Written by Altaf Sayani on 11.14.08
That’s pretty obvious as most of the Digg users are U.S people.Submission during the U.S day time catches more eyeballs!!.
Written by Rohit on 11.14.08
It’s best to submit when on Tue/Wednesdays morns and work your way up for the next 24 hours I believe.
Written by Mani Karthik on 11.14.08
Thanks Amit for the useful information.Will surely help to get some more diggs next time.
Written by Tweakwindows on 11.14.08
Amit, that’s really nice info. Even, I read from a source that articles submitted after 3 p.m U.S Central tim receives several hits. Anyway, it is clear that U.S people read after the hectic day-startup.
I think four of your submission made to the front page of Digg.com, right? Why don’t you post detail on them? I am curious to know how much traffic you received when your articles made to the front page.
Written by Manivannan Palanichamy on 11.14.08
this is exactly i was wondering today, i submitted an article that seemed to much more noteworthy than the one i submitted yesterday but the later got more diggs…. and i figured it’s because of Digg visitors who are still asleep :} anyway nice tip and that actually works…
Written by Jaf on 11.14.08
What this proves is that offices need to block Digg just like most other social networking sites, simply because it’s during the slow and boring afternoons that people have nothing better to do and spend time Digging. :D
Written by Manan on 11.14.08
Unfortunately, time isn’t the only factor that makes or breaks a story submission. The convoluted Digg algorithm requires you to be a top digg submitter to get your story to the frontpage.
Written by Kaushik on 11.14.08
I alwasy new that there was some realtion with time and hits, Thanks for sharing the right time.
Written by Arun Basil Lal on 11.15.08
Hi Amit,
After reading this post i wonder i have to wake till late midnight to submit on digg. May i know if we submit during weekday US, how much exposure will my story get ?
Thanks For the post Amit
Written by Jasmine on 01.21.09