What Is The Best Time To Post On Social Media?
I often see this question being asked. I see it many times in Quora, and there are countless infographics on Pinterest on the topic as well. I see advice like “Twitter – from 1pm until 3pm Monday through Thursday“. Is this right for everyone? Is it applicable for weekend only events as well? Let’s assume that from 1pm until 3pm Monday through Thursday is true for the average of all accounts worldwide. That still means that for your own account it could be very different.
[Tweet “The best times to post on social media are the slots your account history show are the very best FOR YOU @jedi_roach”]
When I used to manage the Philips Lighting Twitter account in its early days in 2010 I knew the weekly moments that gave me the highest engagement. They were midday on Sunday and early evening on Wednesdays. I experimented with the type of content to see if it would make a difference, but it did not. There were several programs available in those years to provide the data I needed and I recall that SocialBro was a favorite of mine at the time, which is now Audiense.
Calculate Your Own Performance.
My response to the question of what is the best time to quote has always been the very best times to post on social media are the slots your account history show are the very best FOR YOU. Makes sense right?
I would also add that the metric I would suggest to use is engagement. Engagement and conversion are key. Do not only look for the moments when your audience view your posts the most. Look also when they engage the most. You can find out those valuable answers for free from your social accounts. Most have dedicated analytics dashboards.
Twitter.
Twitter allows you to login to the analytics portal https://analytics.twitter.com and view your data and also export. In the export you can see all your engagements listed and the days they occurred.
Facebook.
Login to your Facebook fan page insights module and look in the posts section for the “When Your Fans Are Online” section. You can see a typical week showing figures for each day of the week and the time of day that your Facebook fans are online. Shown below is an image from a recent week from my own Facebook page:
Hover over any day to see how each day contributes to the times of day average for that week.
Pinterest.
Go to your Pinterest analytics section and look for the “Your Pinterest Profile” section. You can view any date range you like, and select from impressions data, repins, or clicks. All options explained fully here.
LinkedIn.
If you have a LinkedIn company page you can click the analytics tab and view the data from a wide choice of data ranges.
Social Media Management System.
My top recommendation is to use a social media management system. Once you have connected all your accounts that the system supports you will benefit from one way of presenting the data rather than the different formats that each platform offers. This is my top recommendation because comparisons are easier to make between accounts and platforms. Costs will vary of course.
[Tweet “What is the best time to post on social media? My recommendation is to use a social media management system to find out @jedi_roach”]
Here is the format that my social media management system uses to show the times when my audience is most engaged. The system I use is Sprinklr.
For the network I have selected in this example I can click on any part of the heat map to see extra information. In the above example I have a wide selection of deep dive options that range from viewing the individual posts, any targeting that may have been applied through to a breakdown of the individual accounts and users (community managers) who made the posts.
In Conclusion – What Is The Best Time To Post On Social Media?
It is important to know what works best for each social media account you manage and equally what does not.
This is valuable input for arranging your weekly content calendar. The best approach is to use a social media management system within which all your accounts are connected. If you do not have a social media management system you can still use each native platform but the data format will be different and hard to compare, however, it is key to get going and discover what is the best time to post on social media.
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I kinda agree – while one cannot produce a one-size-fits-all solution, data analysis can offer some insight.
Yes I agree Andy. Its a bit more work at first but better off in the long run compared to using a general infographic based on averages of 1000s of accounts world wide, B2B, B2C etc.
Very clever post with great information. I will make use of this knowledge to maximise exposure for my social media posts. Thanks for writing this!
Hi Glenn. Thanks for the feedback and I will trust that you will notice the difference once you discover your high engagement moments. Often they are not what you expect 😉