It’s easy to get excited about an article, creating the desire to post it on social media as soon as you find it. But keep in mind, timing is everything. If you want to reach the widest range of followers with your posts, it is important to pay attention to what time you are posting to each social media site. Because the demographic and usage of each site is different, the peak times often vary. Here are some basic guidelines to follow when deciding what time to post:
- Facebook is for brief midday downtimes. The best times to post to Facebook are right before and right after the top of each hour. This account is often checked in the few minutes of downtime in between meetings and appointments. Newsfeed activity tends to peak between the hours of 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. While these times can give you some idea of when to post, it is important to check your Facebook ‘Insights’ tab to see when your audience is most responsive. Every audience is different, so it’s a matter of figuring out when they decide to browse their newsfeeds!
- Twitter is active throughout the day. There always seem to be new tweets on a Twitter feed, even when you walk away from the computer or put your phone down for five minutes! As a result, tweets can end up at the bottom of a newsfeed in less than 20 minutes. While the peak times of Twitter are between the hours of 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., keep in mind that also means more people will be tweeting in this time frame as well. That’s why it’s a good idea to tweet multiple times per day to keep your business active in these feeds.
- LinkedIn works around work schedules. LinkedIn is geared toward working professionals, so it’s best to aim for times that they are less likely to be busy. The best times to post to LinkedIn are in the afternoon around lunch time and after 5 p.m. when people are getting off of work. This way, people will have time to actually interact with the articles you post, instead of having to skim and save them for later. Since the basis of LinkedIn is business, the best days to post are Tuesday through Thursday because they are more likely to be the least busy days of the week.
- Tumblr does best in the evenings. Tumblr is the night owl of the group, most of its user interaction happens in the evenings. Its peak time is between the hours of 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. because a large portion of Tumblr’s demographic are around college-aged. As a result, many of Tumblr’s results accumulate overnight.
- Pinterest is for anytime of day. Pinterest’s peak times are very, well, across the board. Users are browsing Pinterest any time from 12 a.m. to 8 p.m. However, the times that show the most activity are late at night between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. and in the evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The best day to post to Pinterest is on Saturdays. Since one of the major bonuses of Pinterest is the countless amounts of ideas that can be found, Saturday can be a day for leisure and trying out some of these new ideas.
Regardless of social media trends, it’s difficult to generalize the timing of posts because of differences in demographics. Once you figure out what works for your audience it’s a good idea to look into a scheduler for your posts such as HootSuite. This tool will help you to keep your posts consistent and take away the stress of finding time to post at each of the peak times everyday.
It’s all about understanding how your audience interacts with your social media accounts. If they rely on it for information that is pertinent to that day, such as menu items or specials, it’s especially important to maintain consistency. But in order to understand your audience, sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
Have you noticed which times of day work best for your social media accounts? Let us know in the comments!