Time it Right—The Value of Timing When Using Social Media for Your Business

Now more than ever, social media is a critical aspect of business. Many different platforms are used to ensure you are reaching your target audience, and getting your message across clearly. Every day we pin, tweet, and post about our business to maintain our social media presence and reach out to our audience. It is certain that what you are posting, and who you are reaching out to is important.

However, another factor that has been found to be just as important is timing, when you are using social media to better reach your viewers. This topic has been thoroughly evaluated, and has shown that there are indeed ideal times to be posting to ensure your content is get- ting the most attention possible. Every social media platform holds its own unique “best post time” for its own reasons, so pay close attention!

Let’s begin with Facebook, a brilliant way to interact with your audience through posts, pictures, advertisements, contests, and more! So, when is posting to Facebook proving to be most beneficial? Time-wise, 1pm-4pm is the time window that results in the highest average click-through. Furthermore, Wednesdays at 3pm have been determined as a peak time. Another great time to post is 6-8am, when your viewers are scrolling through Facebook to awaken their tired eyes. Engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays, and 32% higher on weekends. Also, posts published on Sundays have the greatest interaction per post. So what do all these days and numbers tell us about your audience’s engagement on Facebook? They tell us that Facebook is the “go to” for winding down the workday and workweek, and is most definitely what users are doing when they are not working. Also, keep your cam- era handy — when using Facebook photos generate higher engagement which result in 53% more likes and 104% more comments. Pages that post between 1.5-2 new posts per day engage (on average) twice as many users as pages that post once or twice per week. Furthermore, you should never post more than one time per day if you can’t provide any value to your followers. So choose quality over quantity!

Another big weekend “go to” is Pinterest, where you can discover, create, share, and collect visual bookmarks. The best day and time to be engaging with Pinterest is Saturday morning. The best time in general falls between 8-11pm, and peak time is Fridays at 3pm. As you can see, the least beneficial time to be using Pinterest is during normal work hours. Of course this doesn’t mean to ditch Pinterest during work hours altogether, but be more mindful of using it when you can get the most of your audience’s attention.

Tweet Tweet! What’s that sound? Twitter of course, a little bird that might just be sitting on the shoulders of many during their workday. Research shows that the best time to be posting to Twitter is Mondays- Thursdays 1pm-3pm, and the peak time being Mondays-Thursdays 9am-3pm. Although these peak times fall more into the workday than the statistics for Facebook and Pinterest, it is important to keep in mind that Twitter engagement goes up 30% on the weekends. Also, the chances of retweets are better in the afternoon. Tweets with images result in: 36% increase in clicks, 31% increase in visits, 41% increase in retweets, 48% increase in favorites, 55% increase in leads, and 33% increase in visitor-to-lead conversion rate.

Google Plus is Google’s shot at social networking. Their services function and serve very similarly to those of Facebook. The best time to be using Google Plus is 9am-10am, with peak time being Wednesdays at 9am. It may also be beneficial to know that Google Plus’ fastest growing demographic is 45-54-year-olds. Always remember to know your audience! Instagram seems to be a unique and most loved social media platform among users. There are more beneficial times to post, however any time is also a great time. The nature of Instagram makes it a perfect “go to” app for anytime posting. Peak days for posting on Instagram are Thursdays; however Sundays are deemed most effective. The most effective posting times fall after work from 5pm-6pm. Keep in mind though, Instagram is helpful anytime, so post whenever you’d like!

Blogging is also a very effective way to communicate with your audience and keep them up to date with what’s going on in your businesses. There is a significant separation between when blogs are published and when viewers have time to read them. Blog posts are more effective on Weekends and blogs posted on Saturdays have the greatest share of social media interactions. Blogs posted between 10-11pm see the most interactions.

Keeping your target audience, message, and ideal posting times in mind is a formula for success when using social media in your business. Be consistent, stay engaged, and fuel your content with all of these aspects so social media can better serve you, and you can better serve your audience.