There were some interesting findings in a report that came out last week for newspapers on Facebook.

The report, produced by Buddy Media, a Facebook Page management company, took a look at variety of trends, including which posts get the most engagement, "Likes" and comments, based on character counts, URL structure and more. It's important to point out that this wasn't a study just for newspaper companies. Buddy Media looked at their 600 clients' Facebook pages, so it's a pretty deep dive. Some of their clients come from the following industries: media, retail, sports, food and travel.

While it's not totally media specific there are some logical takeaways.

One of the more interesting stats has to do with when users are inclined to
look at content on Facebook.

Engagement is highest at 4 a.m., 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.

• It's hard to read too much into the 4 a.m. stat, though you have to imagine that it could be parents with kids who are waking up really early.
  
• 7 a.m. makes a lot of sense - that's when people are either getting ready or are on the road to work. What's one of the first things you do when youwake up or are getting ready? Likely you're checking your phone and flipping through your Facebook news feed at breakfast.
  
• 11 p.m. is late for many parents, but checking Facebook one last time seems to be a pattern for many before they go to sleep. Also, this likely talks to a younger audience who stays up later. That also could be the impact of the 4 a.m. audience.
  

So what does all of this mean?

While the study is based on a variety of industries' Facebook pages, this data lines up pretty evenly with what we know about mobile users of our sites. According to data from GateHouse Media newspapers that are on a mobile web platform and other industry studies, mobile traffic really peaks between 8-11 p.m. It also does well in the morning, but doesn't perform as well during the afternoon hours.

While I don't think any single study should dictate a workflow, we are starting to see trends that tell us readers on mobile and social media aren't the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. folks who visit our websites through their desktop computers and laptops.

Newspapers should play around with their social media posting times and study Google Analytics and Facebook Insight. You likely will see trends that are similar to what I have noted above.

Because we're seeing a need to have more content later in the evening on social media sites, consider using Hoot Suite as a management tool to schedule content posts if you don't have folks in the newsroom.

If you're posting four stories a day on Facebook, consider this test:

7 a.m.: Biggest news story from the night before or something breaking that morning.

2 p.m.: Something with a lifestyle hook to it, an invite to check out a calendar of events or an advance story promoting something going on that evening.

7 p.m.: A poll, callout for some kind of content or pose a question for readers to respond to.

11 p.m.: Strong news story or game that a reporter just filed.

There's nothing wrong with a test, as long as you have a strategy to actually evaluate what you have done. Study your stats to see if those times are getting more engagement, through looking at referrals and other tools.

We're learning new things every day in the social media and mobile space and the only way to figure the right strategy is to try lots of things and study the results. The GateHouse Media News & Interactive Division will continue to evaluate studies, test and learn all we can. Using our own corporate sites and partners in the field, we'll run our own tests to figure out the special sauce to this puzzle. We are constantly tweaking our training materials to be up to date and relevant and build best practices and strategy that will allow our newspapers to navigate this new exciting, but complicated space