So great is the flood of content in our social media streams. The dilemma is how to compete and be seen. Although we recommend audience understanding and creativity, there is also the matter of data. I wanted to know what is the ideal time of the day and ideal day of the week to be seen, and engaged with, by an accounts audience. I was surprised at the variety and often contradictory recommendations from studies. I have chosen 8 studies and compared them to find a common trend. I have listed the 8 sources at the end of the article. Here is what I found.
The score refers to the number of recommendations within the 8 studies.
We recommend three posts per week and the data shows clearly the best days for these: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Thursday – 8
Friday – 7
Wednesday – 5
Saturday – 4
Sunday – 3
Tuesday – 1
Monday – No one likes Mondays.
Times in the studies are often ranges so I have included the hours within the range, there is clearly a peak time.
1pm – 8
3pm – 8
4pm – 7
2pm – 7
12 noon – 5
I will mention that the rest of the working day as well as 8pm had some recommendations. And no one is looking at your Facebook posts before 9am.
Given you should be doing multiple posts per week, it is best to run your Facebook Posts between 1 and 4pm Wednesday to Saturday! Schedule your posts accordingly and enjoy the engagement!
The daily data tells us that there is more to be gained while people are starting to think about the weekend for the latter part of the week, or possibly catching up on the weekend just gone on a Monday.
Friday – 7
Wednesday – 6
Thursday – 5
Monday – 4
The rest of the week is pretty much fanless but a few did suggest that, depending on the kind of business, the weekend could work for you.
Instagram is very social, so it is the least likely to be used during work time by employees. This is reflected in the data.
1pm – 8
12 noon – 6
11am – 5
So, best to post at the very least is on Fridays at 1pm, however why not on all four days? If you are in a hospitality business, it is likely you can only have Tuesday off.
Unlike Instagram, Twitter is less involved in planning or communicating between friends, more about yelling at clouds or seeing the latest news or topic du jour. The daily data shows this. Aside from the weekend, the days are fairly consistent.
Wednesday – 8
Monday & Tuesday, Thursday – 7
Friday – 4
Saturday & Sunday – 3
A few of the studies did point out that the weekend is good for B2C (business to consumer) businesses.
But like Instagram, Twitter is most often accessed at lunch time.
12 noon – 7
9am – 4
10am – 4
3pm – 4
6pm – 4
So the best time to tweet is pretty much any work day at lunch time.
Linked in is a slightly different kettle of fish in one respect. It is more likely to be consumed in a business to business context. Wednesday is by far the right day to network. I wonder if that is because by “hump” day people start wondering about greener pastures?
Wednesday – 8
Thursday – 4
Tuesday – 4
Monday – 2
Again, the times of the day seem to match up with the rhythm of the working day, although starting a little early than Twitter and Instagram.
10am – 6
12 noon – 6
11am – 5
9am – 3
5 – 6pm – 3
Oddly, Hootsuite was quite specific in recommending LinkedIn posting times: 7:45 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 12:45 p.m., and 5:45 p.m, so set your alarms. For those looking for a rough guide however, Wednesday from 10 to noon.
Overall, if you are planning a social media content strategy you would be broadly safe posting Wednesday through to Saturday and your choice would depend on your audience segment, and how frequently you want to reach them.
If you would like some advice about how to take advantage of this data and the social media channels, feel free to get in touch and we can work on a plan for you.
Studies:
Sprout Social
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/
Sprout Social studies breaks it down into industry types which is interesting.
HubSpot
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-times-post-pin-tweet-social-media-infographic
Oberlo
https://au.oberlo.com/blog/best-time-post-social-media
CoSchedule
https://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/
Hootsuite
https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-facebook-twitter-instagram/
TheDrum
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/02/11/when-the-best-time-post-social-media
Green Hat
https://green-hat.com.au/insights/2019/social/best-times-posting-b2b-social-media/
