From time to time we may wonder if is there really a best time to post on Social Media. The answer is: There’s no perfect time for every business to post to social media. It depends on what kind of business you have and who your audience is. It also depends on the time that your audience is most likely to see and engage with your content. A well-timed post can lead to more likes, comments, shares, and click-throughs. It’s good to note that this time varies for different industries. In fact, when you prepare something to post, social channels like Facebook or Instagram suggest you to schedule your post at the time that your audience is more active.

In this article we are going to take a look at some of the research already made by authorities on the field, like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, among others. With this information you’ll have a very good starting point. Let’s begin the fun…

Recent studies demonstrate that, in general, the best time to post on Social Media is Monday through Wednesday between 9 am and 12 am Easter Time.

Best time to post on Facebook

In 2019, Facebook changed its News Feed Algorithm to prioritize “meaningful interactions” from family and friends over content from brands. This has made it more challenging than ever to get their organic content in front of their customers without paying to boost it. Studies say that only about a 6% of your post are seen by your friends or followers if you don’t pay.

Beyond creating high-quality content, one of the most effective tactics for “hacking” the algorithm is to make sure you’re posting at the right time. Organic traffic has been in decline for years now, leading Facebook to become mostly a pay per click platform. Since Facebook is the world’s largest platform, with over 2 billion users, you still can get lots of organic traffic.

Well, that being said, let’s see the best time to post on the big F:

B2B brands (Business to Business)
The best time is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

B2C brands (Business to Consumer)
The best time is between 12 p.m. EST on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Best time to post on Twitter

There are 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users on Twitter. 63% of all Twitter users worldwide are between 35 and 65.

There are 500 million tweets sent each day. That’s 6,000 tweets every second.

The problem in this channel is that the lifespan of a tweet is very short, only 18 minutes. So timing is crucial on this network. You have less than 20 minutes to make sure your content reaches the right people!

The best time to post on Twitter is…

B2B brands (Business to Business)
The best time is between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST on Monday or Tuesday, specifically between 11 am to 1 pm.

B2C brands (Business to Consumer)
The best time is between 12 pm to 1 pm EST from Monday to Wednesday.

Best time to post on Instagram

This social channel has become very popular on last years. There are some studies that show that food industry received the most engagement when they post at 12 pm EST, while educational organizations got better results between 4 pm and 5 pm.

But generally speaking, the best time to post on Instagram is between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. EST Monday through Friday.

The Instagram algorithm favors “recency” when it determines which posts you will see in your feed. It’s not strictly chronological, but it’s designed to serve you fresh content that you’re likely to engage with.

That means newer posts are more likely to appear in your feed first, no matter how many times you refresh it. So, you need to make sure your posts are “recent” when your followers are most likely to be online.

Best time to post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the hub of all things business. With over 303 million active monthly users, it’s become more than a platform for people to connect with colleagues. Now, companies are using LinkedIn business pages to build their brand. LinkedIn is different from the other social channels as it’s intended to business people and entrepreneurs.

Some studies show that the best time to publish on Linked is:
In the morning: 7:45 am and 10:45 am
In the afternoon: 12:45 pm and 5:45 pm

A great benefit of publishing on LinkedIn is that your network can share your LinkedIn post, opening you up to a larger (and previously unreached) audience.

Every time your connections interact with your post (likes, comments and shares), it becomes visible to their first-degree connections. This is very powerful as not only does this broaden the amount of people who see your post but it also has the benefit of being viewed as worthy of engagement by their connection.

Some Stats

Facebook
• 74% of Facebook users visit the site every day — more than any other social network
• 88% of Facebook users access the site via mobile device

Twitter
• 46% of American Twitter users visit the site at least once a day
• 80% of Twitter users are affluent millennials
• 80% of Twitter’s users aren’t American. The platform operates in 33 languages.

LinkedIn
• 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn
• 45% of LinkedIn users are in upper management
• 57% of LinkedIn use is on mobile

Use this data as a starting point, test different posting schedules, and compare results. Find the times that work best for you, but never stop testing. Audience habits —and network algorithms— change.

CONCLUSION:

As you can see, finding the best time to post on social media depends heavily on your audience and which platforms you plan on using. We suggest you start with our recommendations in this article and test your posting times from there.

Every social media platform has its own peak time when posts get more engagement. This makes sense since the type of person that uses each social media network varies. Social channels are in some way different one of the other.

For example, LinkedIn is a platform for finding careers and posting about business. Because of this, peak times for LinkedIn will likely be during business hours. However, Facebook and Instagram are more social platforms. You might find the highest activity early in the morning when people are commuting and later at night when people are home.

Know your audience
– How old are they?
– Where do they live? (Consider different timing Easter Time, Pacific Time and so on)
– What’s their commute like?
– How do they work?
– What are their challenges and pain points?
– What social networks do they use?
– What device do they use more: phone, tablet or computer?

As a business owner, in order to maximize your engagement, it’s important to know when each network hits its peak time. The best thing that I can recommend you is to test different channels and schedules; you may find something different that can work better for you. You can also try on weekends.