So this week we've learned a lot about operating in a live media environment with our live version of a demented Q&A. And beyond what tools of destruction are most effective, we've also been plying our trade - trying to drum up audience engagement, and successfully drawing audiences from sources as varied as Facebook, Reddit, Gumtree and Flatmatefinder. We've cracked 110K user sessions in 4 days.

If nothing else this has definitely highlighted the challenges and in some cases opportunities that various channels present, but mainly I think, that running media effectively live requires the rolling up of sleeves, and an implicit understanding of the formats and constant monitoring and iteration of those activities.

To this point. I dug up a study on link clicks which provides a very interesting view of the lifespan of social media posts. The study looked at 1,000 popular social media links to determine how persistent they were. Knowing exactly how long your posts have to engage with your audience is extremely useful for shaping your social media strategy and creating individual posts.

The study found that the half-life – the amount of time at which a link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak – for each social network’s post was:

- Twitter’s mean half-life of a link is 2.8 hours - Facebook’s mean half-life is 3.2 hours - For ‘direct’ sources (like email or IM clients) it’s 3.4 hours - Youtube links have a mean half-life of 7.4 hours

In addition to knowing this it's also important to factor in when your audience are using various channels. People dip into Twitter all day but there are clear peaks during morning commutes, lunch time and evenings. Redditt gets super active in the evening and later into the night.

Here are some lessons we've noted from working on Deakin Stress Break this week:

- Post in the right ad type or format for the outcome you want - Target well but be willing to adjust - Set your budgets to ensure you are competitive - Post at the optimal time (for the channel) - Post each piece of content multiple times - Optimise your post’s message

Finally TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED. You can have an army of media experts working on something, but pretty much no-one cares about your idea as much as you do. Don't assume anything. Make it happen. Hustle.

Andrew R. @ag_reeves