The Best Time to be Social

 

Timing is everything. Savvy social media users know that getting great results is about more than just pressing the send button and hoping for the best, there’s a science behind it.

After you’ve established your objectives and put some fabulous content together, you’ll need to think about the best time to be social. What a waste of time and effort it would be for that content not to reach the right people.

There are various tools available to help you achieve the most engagement across your social media platforms. My two personal favourites are Hootsuite (which enables users to auto-schedule their content at optimised times) and Klout  (a totally free tool that offers timing suggestions and scores how well you’re doing).

The best and worst times to publish content vary for each network. Below, I’ve summarised the key times when posting on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn:

Facebook:

  • According to the Fast Company, Facebook posts published between 1pm-4pm achieve the highest click-through rates, with 3pm on Wednesdays being prime time.
  • On Thursdays and Fridays (when the weekend is in reaching distance) engagement rates are 18% higher.
  • Avoid posting before 8am and after 8pm at the weekend though because, let’s face it, people have much more interesting things to do than check their newsfeeds.

Twitter:

  • The social media boffins at Buffer suggest that click-through rates are generally highest on weekends and Wednesdays.
  • They also highlight that the highest level of RT’s happen at around 5pm, with 181% of users more likely to be active on the networks during their work commute.
  • Coschedule suggest that B2B content performs 16% better during business hours, whereas B2C content performs 17% better on weekends.

LinkedIn:

  • What’s the one thing we don’t want to be thinking about at Friday PM? You guessed it, work! So avoid posting then as people will be winding down for the weekend.
  • Monday also sees low engagement rates as people are likely to be catching up from the weekend…and adjusting to the fact Monday has come around so quickly again.
  • You can expect the most clicks and shares on a Tuesday between 10am-11am. Just before the work day starts, and just after it ends, on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are also suggested as best times.

 

Although the info above is helpful, these aren’t golden rules. The research wasn’t conducted on your intended demographic. Different audiences are active at different times so when posting, always analyse the results you’re getting. There’s no harm is testing various times until you discover what works best for your business.

 

I’d love to hear your experiences of developing a social media schedule. Leave me a comment below and do share any top tips you have!