Timing is Everything: Peak Times to Post

We all know the philosophical question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well, the same applies to your social-media posting. If you’re posting content during times when a majority of your fans or followers are not online, are you being heard?

Social networking has become a fundamental part of advertising, so knowing when your users are active on social networks is key to your efforts and will save you the maddening feeling of “wasting” a great piece of content.

Facebook Business Manager can certainly provide key insights regarding your audiences’ online behavior, but sometimes the wealth of knowledge it offers can leave you scratching your head in search of actionable takeaways. Addthis.com, a social tool that helps increase your social-media following, has performed a data analysis to help determine the best times for posting on various platforms. There’s certainly no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to social media, but here are some posting recommendations you can hang your hat on:

In the U.S., Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn experience a spike in shares during the morning hours. These shares refer to organic user posts, not re-posting or re-tweeting. With shares occurring more frequently in the morning, clicks typically happen later in the afternoon and early evening. Twitter and LinkedIn get the most clicks in the afternoon, while Facebook and Pinterest drive more traffic after 8 p.m. Our guess as to why? Twitter and LinkedIn are primary sources of news and have a more “professional” reputation, making them feel safer to peruse during workday “mental breaks.”

Broadly, we see diminished social-media engagement on the weekends. With all that relaxing and unwinding, it’s no wonder! Pinterest, however, is a weekend warrior and bit of a night owl, with the majority of its platform interaction happening in the 9-10 p.m. hour, most commonly on Sunday evenings.

It’s important to reiterate that one size does not fit all when looking at ideal posting times, clicks, shares and overall engagement — we must keep in mind the huge variance in demographic and psychographic behaviors, as well as the geographic locations of one’s followers. The U.K. and U.S. obviously don’t have the same online tendencies, and a grandmother and a millennial are certainly not engaging with the same types of content during similar time frames.

Mastering the art of social media takes time, dedication and a whole lot of day-to-day learning and spur-of-the-moment adjustments. Without metrics and analytics to use as a benchmark, it’s easy to fall victim to a “set it and forget it” mentality when it comes to social posting. Here at The Brandon Agency, we’re experts at analyzing social habits and creating content that not only resonates, but also yields maximum reach and engagement for a specific brand’s audience. So that tree that fell in the forest? We’re here to amplify the sound when it falls.