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Around the Clock: When to Post on Social Media

by Kim Chinh

You’ve created strong content, you’ve identified your channels, you’ve written a caption that includes bullets, a question, or a quick take on the piece. You’re ready to go, right?

Not so fast!

There’s a further wrinkle and getting it right can significantly add to the reach and engagement of your post. For each channel, there’s an optimum time to post. The goal is to get people to see your post, so getting the timing right when your viewers are active will help them see it. Even better, if others see it, they might like, comment, repost or retweet it, which can also broaden the reach of your post.

But how do you optimize your timing to make sure you have the most viewers possible? Each channel has its own rhythm when its users are online and specifically engaged in that platform. Here is the break down:

 

INSTAGRAM

Why Insta? The platform has evolved, and more and more companies are posting and seeing the benefit. For Instagram, reels pay benefits because they continue to draw viewers, but posts work well too. Because this is more of a true social network, on average, the best time for Instagram posting is mid to late evening and mid to late afternoon.

The best time is 6-9pm, but mid-afternoon from 12-3pm works well too. Insta users are not as engaged between 3-6pm.

As far as the day goes – avoid Mondays.

 

FACEBOOK

FaceBook is still a go-to. Since they are both “Meta”, it makes sense that posting times are similar to Instagram. A digital marketing survey by HubSpot found that 25% of marketers find 6-9 pm to best, and 21% find 12-3 pm as the best time to post.

The best day for posting is Friday.

 

TWITTER

Twitter is community-based, and users seem to be most active in the mornings from 9am-12pm, followed by early afternoon from 12pm-3pm, then late afternoon from 3pm-6pm. Twitter users are most engaged on Wednesdays and Fridays, but Twitter really is still an every day or most days platform. Just don’t bother with early morning, as the 6am-9am slot doesn’t yield the best results.

 

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn users follow the trend of Twitter users in terms of optimizing hourly breakdown. Since LinkedIn is a professional platform, it makes sense that most people check it during the workday.

  1. 9am-12pm
  2. 12-3pm
  3. 3-6pm

The best posting days are Mondays, Wednesdays, then Tuesdays. Logically, weekends have the lowest platform traffic.

The key is to post regularly, and then begin to gather data and see what’s working. You can also refine your approach further, and see what types of content gather the most responses. The platforms universally reward video content, because it gets the most engagement.

If you haven’t started incorporating video, you should start. But if you’re still getting filming yourself right, an easy way to get more engagement is to create animated graphics. Canva works really well for this. And of course, adding a little soundtrack is a bonus.

Another tool to make this simpler is a scheduling tool, like Sendible or Buffer.

Keep shipping!


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