Best Times to Post on Social Media

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Ah, the age-old question. When is the best time to post on social media? When will most of my followers see it? When will it get the most traction? I hear this question frequently from my clients. As some of you may have guessed, the answer is: “It depends.” While there’s lots of research on the subject, I always advise folks to take it with a grain of salt and instead, dig into their own analytics to determine the best time to post. Today on the blog, we’ll be exploring some general advice on what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to posting times.

General Guidance

While there is an abundance of research out there, I tend to shy away from sweeping generalizations about specific times. For example, Hootsuite claims that 10am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays is THE ideal time to post on social media. There are so many variables that go into it, though! Your industry, the type of content you’re sharing, when your followers are most active, the list goes on. Testing is always your friend--you can test out sharing posts at 10am, but you may find that it’s not the perfect time for your brand! And that’s okay.

Some very broad guidance that I find tends to hold true across most industries is that many people are active at the following times:

  • First thing in the morning -- Lots of us are in the habit of checking our phone right when we wake up, or over breakfast in the morning, or on the subway into work. A post at 8 or 9am can perform well!

  • Over the lunch hour -- Again, many people are in the habit of checking their phone when they sit down to eat lunch, whether it’s in the office or at home.

  • In the evening -- Whether you’re trying to reach students, working professionals, or an older demographic, folks will often do one more mindless scroll after dinner or before bed, so evening posts do perform well too.

With most of my client accounts, I find posts in the afternoon and evening tend to perform best. Any morning posts I schedule tend to flop--directly contradicting the advice in many articles!  That’s why it’s important to do your own research, try things out, and see what works best for your organization.

Dive into the Data

Instagram allows you to see what times your audience is active on each day of the week. for example, between 9am-9pm on thursdays, my audience is pretty active! it declines before 9am and after 9pm

Instagram allows you to see what times your audience is active on each day of the week. for example, between 9am-9pm on thursdays, my audience is pretty active! it declines before 9am and after 9pm

The best way to figure out when to post is by reviewing your analytics. Instagram shows you which days of the week and what times of day your audience tends to be online most. Check out my past guide on How to Review Your Instagram Insights for more detailed instructions. 

Facebook and Twitter don’t show graphs of posting time and day of the week performance as clearly as Instagram does, but you can still review post performance in one centralized place and look for trends as to particular times or days when posts did well

As I’ve mentioned previously, a scheduling tool can be a tremendous help when tackling social media marketing. Many scheduling tools are able to review the data for you in the background and recommend optimal posting times based on that data. It’s super handy!

Planoly shows 3 recommended scheduling times per day based on data from past post performance

Planoly shows 3 recommended scheduling times per day based on data from past post performance

Surprising Findings & Other Reminders

An example of how my audience activity is pretty consistent across every day of the week

An example of how my audience activity is pretty consistent across every day of the week

Studies have led to some unexpected results. Again, take these with a grain of salt, but I wanted to highlight some interesting tidbits here!

  • According to Sprout Social, weekends are not a great time to post. Saturday is the worst day to post on Facebook and Twitter, and Sunday is the worst day to post on Instagram and LinkedIn. It seems that people are out enjoying their weekends and not glued to their phones as much as on weekdays! This partially aligns with my experience, though I tend to see a pretty flat line for what days of the week people are most active. Folks in the audiences I’m trying to reach tend to be online pretty much every day! I do see a dip on Saturdays, though, and always avoid posting on Saturday evenings.

  • Best posting times vary by industry, so don’t assume that something that works for your friend who works in healthcare will work for your restaurant. It’s highly variable!

  • Algorithms are constantly changing, so it’s hard to bank on one specific posting time as the be-all, end-all key to social media success. Stay tuned to social media news to be sure you’re understanding these constantly-changing platforms

While you don’t need to put too much stock into figuring out the ultimate posting time, posting at times when your audience is active online is one tactic in building a strong social media strategy.

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