The Best Time to Post on Social Media

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What’s just as important as gathering good content you can share with your followers? Knowing when to post the content. Our Windsor digital marketing company wants you to know that it’s vitally important to be strategic about when you post your content – otherwise, who’s going to engage with your posts? Posting when nobody is around is a waste of time and content, so understand the best time to post on social media. You must figure this out on your own by posting regularly on your own social media channels; until then, schedule your posts to go live when the most people are statistically active (Buffer makes it simple to do exactly this). You can find the best times and days to post below. Confused?

When are people statistically the most active on social media?

Note: Times are displayed in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

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You might think that Facebook users are the most active in the evening – surprisingly, you’d be wrong. You’re going to theoretically garner the most engagement by posting between 11am – 4pm on any given weekday. SproutSocial claims that the time of the week with the most activity is either on Wednesday at 1pm – 3pm and Thursday between 2-3pm. Evenings and weekends have the least amount of engagement, probably because people are busy.

“Engagement rates consistently peak during the midday on weekdays,” says SproutSocial. “The most engagements are sent on Facebook during typical lunch breaks on Wednesday and

Thursday. Weekends tend to be poorer times for engagement–especially on Saturday. People are out and about on Saturdays so don’t expect much engagement when your audience is the busiest.”

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Instagram

Interestingly enough, Instagram seems popular all the time. Hubspot claims that the best time to post on Instagram is anytime between Monday and Thursday (except between 3-4pm). Videos seem to follow a rule all their own. As long as you post a video after 8am but before 9pm, it shouldn’t impact your engagement. There’s an interesting dynamic you’re probably seeing between both social media platforms: users see Facebook as more of a business tool while Instagram is viewed as a thing you do after work.

Twitter

Twitter may be the hardest social media platform to find a perfect time to post, mainly because there’s so much engagement happening on Twitter all the time that’s it difficult to know what constitutes a perfect time. SproutSocial suggests the best time to post is Friday between 10-11am – in fact, Friday is the best day to tweet, period. Even so, feel free to post any day between 11am-noon as this hour seems to be when the most users are active. Twitter users seem to use the social network later than any other platform. If you want to post shareable content later in the evening, do it on Twitter.

LinkedIn Hootsuite found some pretty specific best times to post: 7:45am, 10:45am, 12:45pm, and 5:45pm between Monday and Thursday.

“The Hootsuite social team posts on the 45-minute mark because most brands are posting on the hour,” says Hootsuite. A great idea if you want your posts to be ‘separated from the pack,’ and decrease the risk of them getting lost in the shuffle. Since LinkedIn is a business social network, it makes sense that a lot of engagement comes during the workday. Then again, there are always professionals looking for a new job/searching for job leads during the weekend so try posting sporadically a few Saturday’s and Sunday’s to see if your content gets any engagement.

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Your best time to post

This one is trickier. It depends on your users, your location, and what’s happening in the world, but by getting to know your audience you can figure this out on your own too. Remember a few tips.

Post in different timezones

Think about where your customers live: if you’ve been shipping a lot of products to California, repurpose your content to go live for customers living in the Pacific Standard Timezone (PST) too. Have a few overseas customers? Schedule repurposed posts to go live when they’re the most active.

What’s trending in your target audience?

Just because you sell baked goods doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from what’s happening in pop culture. Whether it’s Game 5 of the World Series of a celebrity fell off the stage at the Grammy’s, ride the coattails of the hottest talk in pop culture by using trending hashtags and even memes. Whatever it takes to get people to notice your brand!

Count instances of engagement

Take it from this digital marketing agency in Windsor: sometimes it pays to be old school. Open up a spreadsheet on your desktop (or use an old-fashioned pen and paper) and record all instances of engagement: likes, retweets, shares, comments, etc. Record when your posts went live, and in a month you will have an idea as to when your users engage with you the most. Implement it into your post scheduling, and continue getting more accurate as the data keeps rolling in. Also keeps tabs on the analytics of each social media platform. Remember: never stop collecting data!

And if collecting data or keeping track of the best times to post on social media becomes an issue? Reach out to our SEO services company! Windsor entrepreneurs know that when they need a proven team to help them to perfect their marketing strategies, they choose Web Geeks. Call today, and ask about a free consultation!