TL;DR
- There’s no short answer to the best times to post on social media, it all depends on each platform and your customers.
- To get started, stick with these guidelines to the peak times on each platform.
- But going forward, you need to test what works for you and the times that your customers are most active.
Social media changed the online world. For many, including Sean Case, social media is the internet. Collectively, there are billions of users worldwide and the number keeps growing.
Every day, more and more businesses are signing up to take advantage of social media marketing. And with some companies seeing their return on investment (ROI) improve by up to 119%, it’s not hard to see why. According to Hootsuite, the number of social media users worldwide in 2019 is 3.484 billion.
Wow.
That impressive figure brings us nicely on to today’s question.
“Dear Adzooma,
I run a little florist shop in East London and have been recommended to start getting on social media to boost sales. This is the first time I’ve run social profiles for business. It’s a whole new world to me and I’m not sure how much we’ll get from it because we aren’t a massive business to begin with.
We’re in need of some tips to help us start out. A lot of the things I’ve posted so far don’t have a lot of engagement and I’m not sure if I’m posting them at the right times at all. So, my biggest question is, when is the best time to post on social media?
Thanks!”
Jackie
Thanks for getting in touch Jackie!
First of all, posting on social media is absolutely worth it for your business. If the sheer reach alone isn’t enough to convince you, maybe this list of benefits will:
- It makes your company more accessible. If your users have a problem or need to get in touch, they’re likely to try you on social media first before picking up the phone or emailing. If you reply quickly and provide great customer service, your customers will spend on average 21% more on your products. So, you’ll increase your profits by being more accessible.
- As over half the people on social media interact with brands more than once a month, social media is also great for building relationships with your customers. Building on these relationships will increase customer loyalty to your brand, which in turn will increase your sales and profit.
- In addition, 60% of customers will tell their family and friends about a brand that they’re loyal to, expanding your customer pool.
- Plus, every time someone shares or interacts with your posts, you’ll get noticed by a wider audience, making it an excellent way to expand your reach.
Convinced about social yet? Great, let’s discover the best time to post on social media for each platform.
When is the optimal time to post social media updates?
Generally, the best time to post on social media depends on the platform you’re using and the customers you’re appealing to.
If you’re using tools like SproutSocial or Kontentino, they include features that automatically create schedules based on how many posts you’ve got queued up and ready to go out.
But features like this aren’t always the best for your company. Some posts are more important than others – and will need to go out on the days and times that they’ll get the most impact.
That doesn’t mean that as soon as you know the best times to post, that’s the only time you post.
You shouldn’t rely on a strict posting schedule. If you’re only posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12pm exactly, your users will start to notice.
Doing this can make your profiles look unnatural which goes against the ‘in the moment’ and ‘real-time updates’ selling points of the platforms.
Now that warning is over with, let’s look at the best times to post for each platform. All data is taken and collated from SproutSocial, CoSchedule and HootSuite research.
- Weekdays are the best time to post on Facebook, particularly in the daytime between 10-3pm.
- Thursday is the most popular day for Facebook, with TrackMaven showing that Thursday at 8pm is a key time to post.
- Wednesdays are also popular on Facebook, particularly between 12-2pm.
- On the weekends, 12-1pm shows the most Facebook engagement.
If you’re B2B the best times to post are around 9am and 3-4pm on a weekday. This is most likely as people prepare to start a normal working day and when they need a break in the afternoon.
For B2C companies, the best times are 9-10am, 12-1pm and 4-5pm. This shows that these customers are likely to check Facebook on their lunch break, as well as the start and end of their day.
Read: 44 Practical Facebook Marketing Tips For Businesses
- Twitter also sees the most engagement during weekdays, particularly around 3pm.
- To SproutSocial, Friday is the best day to tweet, especially between 9-10 a.m.
- Sunday mornings are the worst time to tweet and show the least Twitter engagement.
Co-Schedule have found that people use Twitter the most when they’re waking up, winding down or commuting to and from work.
For B2B companies, the best time to catch people is 8-10am, midday and 7-9pm every weekday.
B2C companies also have a similar timeframe, offering 7-8am, 11am, 6pm and 9pm as peak times to post.
- Instagram is another social network that’s regularly checked during people’s lunch hours, with the best time to post between 12-1pm during the week.
- The platform sees the most engagement Tuesday – Friday, between 9am-6pm.
- Sunday is the least engaging day to post on Instagram.
For B2B, it’s best to schedule posts around lunchtime in the weekday, but 5-6pm and 8-9pm can also drive engagement.
For B2C, lunchtime is also a great time to post. However, it’s recommended to also expand the posts into the evenings and weekends, with 9 pm proving to be a popular time for engagement.
- As a professional network, LinkedIn should not be used on evenings or weekends.
- Tuesday – Thursday are the best days to post, between the hours of 7am-6pm.
- Wednesday 3-5pm sees a spark of engagement and is the best time to post on the platform.
Generally, both B2B and B2C businesses will see the same amount of engagement for posting during the weekday, particularly in the morning, lunchtime and early evening from 5-6pm.
However, B2B companies posting news updates will see more engagement in the morning 7-9am, as many users check the platform before starting work similar to a newspaper.
- Pinterest is more commonly used during weekends and evenings, with Friday and Saturday being the best days to post.
- Off-peak hours work better for this platform, with peak times of 2-4pm and 8-11pm.
- 2-4am is also a highly engaging time to post on Pinterest, capturing those who use the platform when they can’t sleep or wake up early in the morning.
The golden rules of social media marketing for engagement
The above times are guidelines. But they’re not set in stone.
To help you achieve social media success, follow these 3 golden rules:
1. Post When Your Customers Are Online
These guidelines are great as a starting point – but they won’t magically fit every business out there.
You need to monitor your results and data and see when your customers are online and interacting with your posts.
Then, test it.
See if posting at these times affects your engagement and response rates – until you’ve got an optimum posting schedule to really get the most from your posts.
2. Stick To The Platforms That Work
The temptation when starting out in social media is to get yourself online on every single platform.
After all, if one business can profit from Facebook, you can too right?
The truth is that most businesses won’t need every platform. Each one has its own purpose and type of customer. You should stick to that.
As a florist Jackie, visual platforms like Instagram will work really well for you, as your customers will be able to see your flowers in the best light. But more professional ones like LinkedIn aren’t going to see you much good.
If you choose the wrong platform, all you’ll be doing is wasting valuable time and energy building your profile on a platform that your customers won’t even see.
So, save your budget and time for the ones that matter.
3. Think About What You Post
Social media posts aren’t just thoughtless bits of content.
Whether you’re on Twitter, Instagram, or Linkedin, your updates should have a purpose. It should be on brand and on message for your company. Otherwise, you start to promote a confusing image of your business.
There has to be a reason for people to follow you, else your engagement will stay low.
You can’t just blindly post sales messages. These posts aren’t engaging and offer your followers nothing in return for following you.
Instead, link your followers to useful content (such as from your own blog). Keep them updated with exciting news and events. Interact with them and build relationships. Get involved in relevant discussions that position your company as an industry leader and watch your engagement rise.
Tools You Can Use
Tools You Can Use
Here are some great tools that you can use to easily draft, schedule and publish your social media content:
And there you have it
In answer to your question Jackie, there’s no simple answer to the best time to post on social media.
You can use these peak times of each platform as a guide, but it will take research and testing on your own customers to see what actually works.
If you keep going, you’ll see success in no time at all.
All the best,
Katherine.
