TL;DR; Yes, there is, and it is meaningful.
I think many of us have seen drops in activity in our communities on some days of the week and months of the year. Usually, when this happens to me, I ask myself: “Is this drop (or spike) in activity just a seasonality or is there a problem I need to work on?” Last week, Pavel and I decided to conduct a study of seasonality in online communities so that anyone could easily answer this question.. I am glad to share the results with you.
During the research we looked at two questions:
- Is there seasonality during the week, if so how does it look?
- Is there seasonality during the year, if so how does it look?
We analyzed seasonality based on data from 27 Discourse communities, including discussion communities, communities of practice, and support communities. We found that in all communities, activity on weekdays is higher than on weekends by about 25–30%, with peaks on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
Seasonality during the year is less pronounced, about 10–15%, with a peak in April, May, June, and October.
What does this mean?
This means that even with a growing trend in community activity, there will be slowdowns throughout the year. And if you are planning something that the maximum number of community members should know about, think about the day of the announcement! Most likely, it will not be Saturday or Sunday, but, for example, Tuesday is a good candidate.
If you want to compare other trends in your community with industry benchmarks, we have a free app for that.