We’ve got another jam-packed episode from Buffer’s Science of Social Media for you today. Can you blame us? They’re always serving up the best bite-sized episodes of social marketing news and trends. They certainly help us keep our fingers on the pulse of the industry.

But, like we said, this one is packed with goodness, from the best times to post on each social channel to the power of marketing with… gifs! Ah, what a time to be alive.

Grab a pen and paper, you’ll want to take notes on this one. Skip to 02:00 to get started →

• (02:00) Why it’s important to study your own analytics, test different post times, and study again, to see what works specifically for your brand/company
• (02:20) But there is still value in using generic best times as a guide, particularly when starting your testing
• (02:45) CoSchedule research using 23 studies
• (03:00) Fun fact: 80% of the US population lives in the central and eastern time zones, so post accordingly…
• (03:20) Best times and days to post Facebook (9am, 1pm, and 3pm on Saturday and Sunday)
• (04:30) Twitter: 12pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 6pm
• (04:45) B2B vs. B2B content on Twitter 
• (05:00) When the top-performing content happens on Twitter
• (05:35) Instagram: 2am, 8-9am, 8pm on Mondays and Thursdays
• (06:40) Videos in IG get 34% more engagement than photos
• (06:55) Linkedin: 7-8am, 1pm, 5-6pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
• (07:30) Pinterest: 2pm, 9pm, 2am on Saturdays and Sundays
• (08:40) LinkedIn launches video ads that are available to marketers as a standalone posts  
• (09:45) How sponsored video content can be targeted and their analytics measured
• (11:15) Why gifs outperform other content on social media
• (12:00) Gifs as a huge niche opportunity and how to tap into them in your social media marketing

Google Analytics is one of our favorite tools. It’s free, it’s crazy powerful, and you can set it up in less than 15 minutes. But it’s power and usefulness come at a price. No, not a real price (like we said, it’s free). The price comes when you have to learn how to use it. The tool does so much that there’s a really steep learning curve to it.

A few days ago, Kevin Kononenko from Databox was thinking about this learning curve, and realized that Google Analytics is a lot like a shopping mall. He then decided to break down some Google Analytics (GA) terms using the shopping mall analogy to make them simple.

If you’re a little confused at this point, just read on. It’ll all make sense.

• Users v. Sessions v. Pageviews — Users are the individual people who visit your shopping mall. Sessions are the number of times those people visit your mall. So if a user visits your shopping mall 3 times, that counts as 3 sessions. Pageviews are the different pages, or stores in your mall, that visitors go to.
• Session Duration v. Time on Page — Put simply, time on page is how much time a mall visitor spends in a specific store. Or how much time they spend on a specific page. Session Duration is the amount of time visitors spend in the mall, or on your website as a whole.
• Bounce Rate — You ever go to the mall, go in one store, and leave immediately? That’s bounce rate. It’s not always a bad thing. If your visitor finds what they need and leaves, that’s fine. But if they’re leaving because they’re not finding what they need, that ain’t good.
• Segments — Want to look compare people who visited the mall, but didn’t go to the food court vs. those who did? Segments allow you to do this. With these, you can compare what different groups of visitors do on your website. You’ll be able to see things like if visiting a certain page will make someone more or less likely to purchase from you.

There are a TON more shopping mall analogies in this one →

Play-Doh is at again with a new take on their imaginary species campaign from last year. This time, they’re taking these fantastical creatures digital, with a website dedicated to “The Gallery of Emerging Species.”

Turning clay creations into CGI masterpieces, the site guides children and adults alike through a menagerie of wacky, whimsical creatures. Meet the adorable “cloudsheep” or the flatulent “fartweiler” or the dancing “discofrog.” Each hybrid beast also comes with a bio that is good for the laughs.

But it’s not all fun and games. While this campaign celebrates imagination, there lies a somber subtext. Kids can introduce new ‘species’ to the world with clay, but in reality, animals are disappearing at an alarming rate to due habitat loss.