In the fast-paced world of social media, timing can be everything when it comes to reaching your target audience and maximising engagement. With so many platforms to choose from, and hundreds of millions of users around the globe, determining the optimal posting times can be a challenge in the face of the ominous and shadowy algorithms. Let’s explore the best times to post on some of the most popular social media platforms.
Optimal Facebook Engagement Times
According to our research, the best times to post on Facebook are generally between 9am and 3pm, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; the highest engagement days.
Conversely, posting on weekends may not be as effective, particularly on Sundays. The weekend is when people tend to be with their families, or out and about doing recreational activities away from their phones.
However, the optimal posting times can vary depending on your target audience’s demographics and behaviour, so it’s essential to monitor your analytics to find the ideal posting schedule for your specific audience. Fortunately, Meta Inc’s Business Suite suggests to its users when their audiences are most active, and this is a very useful feature to look out for.
Optimal Instagram Engagement Times
Much like its fellow Meta Inc. platform, Instagram engagement tends to peak on weekdays, with the best times to post being mid-week between 9am and 3pm. For a less saturated market, you could try posting in the evenings between 7 pm to 9 pm.
However, Instagram’s algorithm tends to prioritise recent and relevant content, so consistency and timing consistency are key factors in maintaining visibility and engagement on the platform. This is crucial on a platform that keeps its algorithm relatively hidden in a tornado of reels, photo content, stories, and live content.
Optimal X (Twitter) Engagement Times
X (formerly known as Twitter) has prided itself on being the place to go for up-to-date news stories, breaking headline gossip, and a platform for having conversations in real time. However, this has also brought about controversy that many brands have opted to steer clear of in their digital marketing strategies. For those who have built their companies on the back of socio-economic movements and ethical values, X can also be a lucrative and valuable market, and even a gauge for current trends.
X users are often most active during weekdays, as per the norm. However, they appear to be particularly active for longer periods of the day when compared to Meta platforms; perhaps largely owing to the on-going changes to news stories throughout the day.
Posting anywhere throughout the day between 5am and 9pm could yield high engagement rates, but for peak activity, 9am and 2pm is your best bet.
X’s fast-paced nature means that frequent posting throughout the day can be beneficial for maintaining visibility and engagement, so you may want to consider multiple posts and staying online to engage with your fans or customers.
Optimal TikTok Engagement Times
TikTok comes in to this list as a real outlier. Activity times on this young platform appear to be sporadic compared to the established platforms, but in the chaos there is a real competitive edge to becoming established on the platform where users spend approximately 276 hours a year scrolling through content.
According to the numbers, there are a few options for posting onto TikTok to maximise engagement. As while the peaks aren’t as high, there are elongated periods of high activity most of the day, everyday.
You could try posting on a late Wednesday morning, or on a Tuesday or Thursday early-evening. Saturday and Sunday don’t quite endure such maximised levels of engagement, but between 8am and 5pm on both days you could really hit the numbers you’re after.
Optimal LinkedIn Engagement Times
LinkedIn is primarily used for professional networking and B2B marketing, so the optimal posting times tend to coincide with business hours. Mid-week, particularly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, between 9am to 11am, are generally considered the best times to post on LinkedIn.
Additionally, posting during lunchtime between 12pm to 1pm, and in the early evening around 5pm to 6pm, can also be effective for reaching professionals during their workday as these are times when workers are likely to be commuting or eating.
Conclusion
While these are general guidelines for optimal posting times on different social media platforms, it’s essential to remember that audience behaviour can vary based on factors such as time zone, industry, and individual preferences. Therefore, it’s crucial to monitor your analytics regularly and experiment with different posting times to determine what works best for your specific audience and content strategy. By understanding your audience’s behaviour and preferences, you can optimise your social media posting schedule to maximise engagement and achieve your marketing goals.
Buoy Digital offers services that can help you to strategise your social media accountants, create cohesive content that aligns with your brand image, and compile data and analytics to understand your audience and its preferences better.
Disclaimer: the data shown in this article included users from a wide array of geographic locations, socio-economic backgrounds, account plans, and industries. All data has been adjusted globally, so the times shown should be universal. The engagement rate equals the total engagements during that 1-hour time frame. All of your accounts should be tested as data shown in this article may not apply to your specific brand accounts.
