One of the most popular webinars I’ve ever worked on, The Science of Timing was also one of my favorite. If you haven’t seen it, go check out the on-demand recording now.

In it, I present data I’ve collected over three years about the effect timing has on a variety of online marketing activities, including blogging. Below is an infographic that represents a collection of the three most important stats I have about when to publish blog posts.

In the webinar, I also make the point that my results are based on huge aggregates of thousands, millions, or even in some cases, billions of lines of data. They might not represent the exact best times for your industry. What they represent is a set of times to experiment with, using your own audience.

As in the medical science field, researchers conduct experiments with hundreds or thousands of subjects and find best-practice courses of treatment. In individual cases, doctors start with these best-practices and if they work, great. If they don’t work, they experiment with the next course of treatment. Marketing science is like this. Use my data as a starting point for your own experimentation.

Since most Americans live in the eastern time zone, the times below are ET.

One of the most interesting patterns I’ve found while studying social media and marketing data is what I call in my book “contra-competitive timing.” I’ve found in numerous cases that the most successful times and days to publish new content are off-peak times.

It’s like when you’re at a noisy party and it’s hard to hear the person talking to you 2 feet away, but suddenly you say something awkward and the room quiets down. Now everyone can hear you. The same is true with the internet. When there is less other noise to compete with (ie fewer Tweets, emails, blog posts, etc) your content can gain attention more easily.

The infographic below showcases some of the best examples of this phenomenon I’ve identified.