If you are a social media marketer, one thing that you cannot go without is the best time to post on social media. It is something that has received a lot of attention recently because posts publishing at different times and days receive a varied response from the users.
When to post on social media to maximize engagement is one of the most debated topics. Does posting time really matter? Let’s find out.
Why Posting Time Matters
One of the core reasons why posting time on social media matters is that all the leading social networks use recency as a ranking factor when showing posts in user’s feeds. Social networks don’t rank posts chronologically rather they use algorithms that consider several factors before determining what posts should show first.
Facebook, for example, uses the four main ranking signals: Relationship, content type, popularity, and recency:
Similarly, Instagram switched to a ranking feed that increased average post impression by 50%:
Posting time goes beyond the algorithm though.
Ideally, you should post content when your followers get online so they can view and interact with your post. Your new posts start losing their ranking with time so content published at odd timings might not show in your follower’s feed at all.
Timing is all that matters in marketing.
When to Post on Social Media?
The right time to publish on social networks varies from platform to platform. You can publish a single post on all the social networks once, this isn’t an effective approach to social media marketing. You must schedule posts on all the social sites so that each post goes live at the best time.
Here is an overview of the right time to post on different social media networks:
When to Post on Facebook
According to Sprout Social, the ideal time to post on Facebook is between 11 am and 1-2 pm, and the best day with the highest engagement is Wednesday while the worst day to publish on Facebook is Sunday:
You can see that Facebook users are highly engaged from Tuesday to Thursday between 8 am and 3 pm. These statistics are worldwide and applicable for all sectors and industries.
Hootsuite found that posting content on weekdays at 6:15 am and 12:15 PM PST works best in terms of engagement:
This isn’t based on user data (like Sprout Social’s study) rather Hootsuite shared data from its own Facebook account.
When to Post on Instagram
If you want to maximize engagement on Instagram, post on Wednesday at 11 am. Friday also turns out to be a great day to publish on Instagram between 10-11 am:
Wednesday is overall the best day to publish on Instagram as it is the highest engagement day while Sunday has the lowest engagement rate.
This trend, however, changed due to Covid-19. Monday and Tuesday 11 am and Tuesday 2 pm are also the highest engagement days and times:
This shows when people have to spend more time on Instagram (such as during Covid-19), they do so at 11 am on Monday and Tuesday and 2 pm on Tuesday.
When to Post on Twitter
If you are more active on Twitter, there is one thing you have to do: Post at 9 am daily. This is the right time to tweet. If you are more particular, focus on Wednesday and Friday:
As you can see, weekdays are ideal for tweeting preferably between 9 am and 11 am. Twitter is more of a professional social network so people use it early morning at the start of their day to check trends and top stories.
Saturday is the worst day with the lowest engagement so you should avoid tweeting on Saturday and Sunday.
When to Post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, just like Twitter, being a formal social platform has high engagement throughout the weekdays except for Monday that has the lowest engagement among other weekdays. The best days are Wednesday (8-10 am), Thursday (9 am and 1-2 pm), and Friday (9 am):
If you want to post daily, schedule your LinkedIn posts between 9 am and 2 PM on weekdays except for Monday. Sunday turns out to be the worst day in terms of engagement and there is minimal activity.
When to Post on YouTube
According to How Sociable, Thursday and Friday are the ideal days with the highest engagement to post video content on YouTube. The best time to post videos on these two days is between 2-4 pm:
If you want to publish on other weekdays, schedule your posts between 2-4 pm as it is overall the best time. It is the time when YouTube receives maximum traffic so anything that you post between 2-4 pm will be seen by the majority of people and will likely rank high in YouTube search.
How to Find When to Post on Social Media
These studies show you the best time to post on social media based on data from millions of user accounts and publishing statistics. You can find your account’s best time to publish by looking at the analytics and engagement metrics. And that’s the best way to identify the right time for your audience and business.
For example, you can check Facebook page Insights and see when your fans are online. This will give you an idea of when the majority of your fans are online and that is when you must post on Facebook:
Similarly, you can view analytics for each social platform and identify the most suitable time for posting on that particular network.
The right time varies greatly depending on audience interests and demographics, your industry, location, and several other factors. There isn’t a standard best time for everyone.
Instead of relying on data from other businesses, you must look at your own account data. If you are using a social media management tool or a scheduling tool (like Hootsuite or Buffer), you’ll be able to identify the right time easily via these tools.
Buffer, for example, suggests the right time to schedule your posts based on engagement data. This helps you a lot in posting at the best time for the highest engagement and better ranking.
Featured Image: Unsplash
