Getting user engagement on social media seems like a fairly easy feat, right? You create amazing content, share blog posts on your social media accounts and publish updates regularly, mixing up content between articles, images, videos and so on. For some reason, however, you don’t seem to be getting many likes, comments or shares on your various accounts.
While the content you share is crucial, your lack of user engagement could result from when you are posting. Are you being strategic about when each update goes live on each social media platform?
Thanks to social media tools like Hootsuite, you can craft updates in advance and schedule them for the specific days and times you want them to go live. Keep reading for a guide on when to publish updates for each social media platform.
The Best Times To Post Social Media Updates On Facebook
While research shows ideal days and times to post your Facebook updates, the absolute best way to strategically schedule your social media posts is to review your company’s Insights.
How To Find Facebook’s Social Media Insights
When you go to your Facebook page, click the Insights tab on the left side, then scroll past your Page Summary and 5 Most Recent Posts to a link that says, “See All Posts.” This will bring up a screen that shows you when your fans are online, organized by both days and times.
As you can see, based on Three Girls’ analytics it’s best for us to publish our updates around 7 or 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., as that’s when most of our followers are online.
Next, if you hover your mouse over each day at the top, you’ll be able to see the Times chart based on that specific day. For example, here’s what Saturday looks like:
This tells you that while 8 a.m. is a good time for most of the week, for Saturdays, 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. may be better.
Industry Research: Ideal Times For Facebook’s Social Media Updates
Scheduling your posts at the high-traffic times indicated by your Insights is a strategic way to start, but it’s also helpful to play around with varying publishing times to see if your engagement increases at alternative times. If you decide to deviate from your company’s Facebook Insights, we recommend you start by experimenting with existing industry social media research.
According to Hootsuite, the best times to post on Facebook are between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Remember to pay attention to your analytics regarding shares, comments and likes as you publish your Facebook updates at various times, and note if you see any trends as to which social media posts perform best.
The Best Times To Post Social Media Updates On Twitter
While Twitter provides analytics regarding which tweets receive the most impressions and engagements, the platform doesn’t break down the social media data quite as nicely as Facebook.
How To Find Twitter’s Social Media Analytics
If you sign into your account and go to analytics.twitter.com, you’ll see an overview of your activity. Scroll past the 28-day summary into the current month. Right below the “Top Tweet,” you’ll see a button that says, “View Tweet activity.” Next to it there’s a link that says, “View all Tweet Activity.” Click that link to pull up an overview of all your updates. The chart at the top breaks down your tweets by day, which can be helpful in choosing which days to focus on for Twitter.
Industry Research: Ideal Times For Twitter’s Social Media Updates
If this still doesn’t give you enough insight regarding when to publish your social media updates on Twitter, there is research to get you started. According to Hootsuite, the best time to post on Twitter is 8:00 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays.
As with Facebook, it’s best to create a schedule to form a baseline, then start publishing at different times to see if you notice any positive changes in your engagement. Pay attention to trends so you can find the best time for your brand to push your tweets through.
The Best Times To Post Social Media Updates on LinkedIn
As a general rule of thumb, LinkedIn updates tend to perform best Monday through Friday. Because it’s considered the most professional of the social media platforms, the majority of users only sign in when they’re thinking about work.
How To Find LinkedIn’s Social Media Analytics
To find your brand’s LinkedIn analytics, go to your company page and click “Manage page.” Select “Analytics” from the bar at the top, and when the drop-down menu pops up, click “Updates.” This will bring you to a line graph of your updates’ impressions. From there, you can click the drop-down menu to look specifically at clicks, comments, likes, shares and so on.
By looking at each metric, especially those related to your social media goals, you can see which days your updates are performing best and strategically select which days to prioritize publishing updates.
Industry Research: Ideal Times For LinkedIn’s Social Media Updates
Even if you know what days you want to focus on, which times are ideal? Hootsuite shows that the best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8:00 a.m.
The Best Times To Post Social Media Updates On Instagram
Much like Facebook, Instagram’s insights break down social media users’ time online to help you maximize the best times to publish your posts.
How To Find Instagram’s Social Media Insights
To find your analytics, go to your page’s profile, then click the three lines in the very top right-hand corner. This will open a menu where you select “Insights.”
From there, you can scroll down to see a quick snapshot of your content and its visibility.
Then, if you click the “Audience” tab (to the right of “Activity”) and scroll to the bottom, you can see a breakdown of which days your followers are online, as well as times they’re online each day.
As you can see, these social media analytics will give you a fantastic starting point for figuring out the best time to post your Instagram updates. Curious what the industry research says?
Industry Research: Ideal Times For Instagram’s Social Media Updates
According to a Hootsuite, the best times to post on Instagram is 11:00 a.m. on Wednesdays.
The Best Times To Post Social Media Updates On Pinterest
Depending on your business’s industry, a strong presence on Pinterest could be vital to social media success. How do you make sure you are pinning (publishing updates) at the optimal times?
How To Find Pinterest’s Social Media Analytics
Although it’s not as intuitive to find, you can sign into your Pinterest account, then visit analytics.pinterest.com to find helpful data. On the left-hand side, you can adjust the date range. Then, in the middle there’s a drop-down menu where you can toggle between Impressions, Engagements, Close-Ups, Link Clicks, Saves and so on.
While this information can certainly help you fine-tune your Pinterest strategy, it doesn’t give you much insight into the best days and times to publish your updates.
Industry Research: Ideal Times For Pinterest’s Social Media Updates
According to HubSpot the best times to pin are between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Of course, as with all the other social media platforms, it’s best to see what works best for your target audience.
Finding The Social Media Sweet Spot
As you can tell, there’s a lot of information available to fine-tune your social media strategy. Look at your analytics, experiment with different days and times and watch for trends that emerge so you can find the best publishing schedule for each of your social platforms.
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