What’s The Best Time to Post to Social Media?

If you listen to some marketers, they’ll tell you that the best time to send out a social media message is on Thursday at 3 p.m. Well, most of that is just bad advice. There really is no best time to send out a social media message for effectiveness. But there might be a best time for you in terms of time management. There may also be a best time for your business based on who you’re trying to reach.

People are on social media at different times of the day. And so should you be. Or, you could post your messages at various times of the day, and you don’t have to be on social media in order to do that. In fact, you can post on Facebook while in a business meeting without having to pick up your computer or cell phone.

So how do you do that? You pre-schedule your posts.

There are varying opinions online about pre-scheduled posts.  Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg says, “I’m not saying you should pre-schedule. Some businesses do, some businesses don’t. Some people will tell you they don’t like pre-scheduled posts, and if you do it they’ll un-friend you. I say do what is best for reaching your customers and potential customers, because after all, that’s all that matters.”

But what about the time of the day?

“In general,” says Caroline, “I think the best times to post on social media are first thing in the morning, last thing at the end of the day, and during lunch or breaks. These are the times when you’re most likely to reach the largest number of people. Take a few minutes to see who has responded to you or engaged you, take the necessary action, and move on. The key there is to move on. You have a lot of other important things to do, so don’t get distracted.”

Ideally, you’d measure the effectiveness of your social media by testing Tweets and posts at various times of the day.  See which time of the day brings you the most engagement, and try to increase your volume at that time – but don’t overlook the rest of the day as people’s habits change and you want to remain flexible enough to change with them.

Published on: December 20, 2012