When is the best time to post on social media? How big a role does the timing of a post play in your social media success? Is there even an ideal time to publish posts? And if so, when is the best time to post on different channels?
We’ll dive into the details of these questions in our quest for the answers. We’ll cover the following topics:
– Why is posting time so crucial on social media?
– The best time to post on Instagram
– The Best TikTok Post Times
– The best time to post on Facebook
– The best time for a LinkedIn post
– The best time for a Twitter post
– The best time for a Pinterest post
– The importance of using data to determine the best post time for your business
– How a social media management tool like Levuro helps you find and stick to the best posting time
Why is posting time so crucial on social media?
As a social media manager, you should know when the best time to post is. This is the only way you can achieve maximum effectiveness with your content.
A good post does not necessarily succeed or fail because of the time of publication. But choosing the right time window has a big impact on the engagement it can generate on each platform. Poor timing can cause even the most attractive content to be (unintentionally) ignored by the target audience.
Take the stage when the audience is watching
There are time slots when many users are online and you have the stage set for your post. At these times, you can, theoretically, reach the most followers and members of your community. The different days of the week and times of day play an important role. And if your audience is global, don’t forget to consider the appropriate time zones in your planning.
Include your community’s user habits in your timing as well. These help you determine the best posting time for all your channels.
All social networks have their user peaks at different times
The best time for social media posts depends on the channel you’re using. There are extensive studies that have determined the ideal posting times for all relevant platforms.
However, studies should only serve you as a starting point – don’t consider them as set in stone. Be sure to combine them with the analysis tools provided by your channels or social media management tools for the best possible results.
With a careful analysis of individual platforms, you can define the best time to post on Instagram for example. Or choose the best TikTok post times. Similarly, you can also determine the best posting time for Facebook or LinkedIn.
The best time to post on Instagram
Instagram, with more than 1 billion active users, has not yet replaced Facebook as the top dog in terms of reach. But in terms of hipness and glamor, the increasingly popular app is clearly ahead.
This is one of the reasons why so many global companies are now represented on Instagram. This presence is greatly appreciated by the users – an impressive 800 million users follow company profiles on the platform!
An Instagram presence is worth it. To ensure that your posts don’t get lost on such a large platform, you should know the best time to post on Instagram .
The best post times for Instagram are during the week
On weekdays, active Instagram users tend to stay on the platform:
- in the mornings
- after the lunch break
- in the late afternoon
The evenings and the weekend tend to belong to other platforms.
But also check your data! (only with business profile)
If you opt for a business profile, Instagram provides an analysis function. Here you can find out the times of day when your posts achieved the best reach and the most interactions.
The analysis of this user data is helpful for the optimal exploitation of the Instagram algorithm. This eventually determines whether your community sees your content in their feed.
The timing of your post becomes all the more important when you understand how people react to it. Depending on the engagement level of your content, Instagram decides whether to show your content to more users or not. Engagement level generally refers to the number of likes, shares and comments a post receives. Therefore, posting content that generates interaction from the users is vital.
The Best TikTok Post Times
TikTok’s popularity continues to grow, especially among the younger generation. It has now established its own space as one of the most important social media platforms.
Older audiences are also increasingly enjoying this channel. More than 700 million active users, a number that continues to grow, form a large community on the platform.
TikTok only offers video and lacks the variety of content types that Instagram has (images, carousels, reels, stories…). Despite that apparent limitation, it has become a large playing field for marketers and individuals. Its popularity means the platform cannot be ignored.
Best post time for TikTok: hard to narrow down
The demographic characteristics of TikTok users are diverse. This makes it hard to pinpoint the ideal posting time. Nevertheless, studies show that a post between 9:00h and 12:00h has the highest chance of success.
Again, check your data and learn from it! (only with pro account)
As is the case with every other platform, once you have included the posting times in your plan, make sure you update your strategy with the help of analytics data. See how well your posts are being received by the users and adapt your posting times accordingly.
The best time to post on Facebook
Facebook is the ultimate giant of the social media business. And even though the platform now looks slightly dusty, it still has compelling arguments for its raison d’être with more than 1.7 billion active users.
The best post time for Facebook is during office hours
According to studies, the best time to post on Facebook is:
– 11:00h
– Between 13:00h and 14:00h
Thank god, there are also data! (only with business pages)
Facebook recently began offering extensive and user-friendly analysis tools. These are valuable and help you determine the ideal time for a post by tracking user behavior on your page.
The best time for a LinkedIn post
LinkedIn, unlike most other social media platforms, is home to a select audience, namely business professionals. The business networking platform is largely made up of people who use it for networking. With that in mind, any guesses on what the best time for a LinkedIn post is?
Best post time on Linkedin: During working hours
If you’re trying to reach other business professionals, you can’t go wrong by posting during working hours. Here’s the best time to post on LinkedIn:
– Between 7:00h and 10:00h and
– From 5:00h to 6:00h
But don’t worry too much about posting time
Quality content is the real deal on LinkedIn, and that’s exactly what the platform rewards. The importance of posting time, especially in comparison to other social media platforms, is relatively insignificant for LinkedIn.
The best time for a Twitter post
Twitter is the ideal platform for staying up-to-date with news, following events and famous people, and for being in direct touch with your target groups. Resultantly, Twitter users remain active on the platform throughout the day.
Best post time for Twitter: mornings
The average Twitter user is an early riser. Studies have shown that the majority of the audience is reached between 8:00h and 10:00h in the morning, before switching to other channels such as Instagram or Facebook.
The best time for a Pinterest post
Pinterest is an image sharing platform in the form of a large digital pinboard that invites users to virtually browse through content. The nature of the platform makes it an ideal browsing activity for users in their free time.
Best post time for Pinterest: Lunch break, evenings, and weekends
Unlike most other channels, Pinterest is worth posting on weekends for maximum response.
The best times for a Pinterest post on weekdays are
– during the lunch break between 12:00h and 14:00h
– in the evening
Optimize with analytics (for business accounts only)
Pinterest also offers a business account. It includes analysis and evaluation tools that you can (and should) use to optimize your content’s performance.
How to determine the best post time for your business?
To sum things up, there are time windows for all social media channels when traffic is highest.
You could sit back right now and just post at those times. However, if you have read this blog carefully up to this point, you also know that despite their importance, these are not binding points of reference. Instead, they are great starting points.
This is exactly where the wheat is separated from the chaff. Simply posting in these time frames is not enough. Your posts would almost certainly get lost in the flood of competing publications and generate little or no effectiveness.
Below, we’ll show you how to determine the ideal time slots for your posts based on your target audience’s user habits and demographics.
1. Get to know your target audience
It may sound trivial, but at the beginning of all your considerations, you should ask yourself – if you haven’t already – which social media channels your customers actually use. Knowing the best times to post on TikTok, for example, won’t do your business any good if your target audience doesn’t hang out there.
Almost all data analysis tools provide you with demographic characteristics such as age, gender or location. Using this data, you can learn a lot about the typical daily routine of your target group.
Depending on whether they are students or employees, people spend different times on social media. Take into account all available user habits and include them when determining the publishing time.
Posting for target groups in different time zones
If your target audience is spread across different time zones, choose a time when as many users as possible are online at the same time, irrespective of their time zone.
Alternatively, you can post twice during the day: in the morning and in the evening. This is the best way to reach a community that is active in time zones that are far apart.
Check if your target group changes
Make it a rule to check the insights you gain about your target group at regular intervals to ensure they are up to date. After all, the current “best time” for your posts may be completely different in the future. For example, events such as the Corona pandemic can drastically change people’s lives and therefore, their online habits.
2. Choose channels based on target group behavior (less is more)
The guiding principle here is clearly quality over quantity. Most likely, your target group uses numerous social media channels. However, the combined value you can generate for your business is greater if you focus on two or three of these channels.
A good prioritization strategy is to find out which of these channels your audience spends the most time on. Include which of these platforms are the best fit for your business and the business communications you’ve defined.
Post on your chosen channels at different times – for example, early in the morning on Twitter and later in the day on Instagram. This way, your content will get regular attention throughout the day.
3. Create a posting schedule and stick to it
You’ve completed the audience analysis and selected the channels you want to post on. Now it’s time to create a social media content calendar. This way, you’ll always keep track of everything and won’t get bogged down with other tasks.
A schedule can save a lot of time that can be used elsewhere – for attractive content creation, for example. However, the most brilliant plan is of no use if it is not consistently implemented and followed.
4. Test and analyze
As the last step, test and use analytics tools to see how much engagement your past posts generated. Observe over a period of time, at least four weeks, with one or more daily posts. This way you can check when your posts are getting the most attention.
With this information, you can optimize both days of the week and times for your posts. In any case, you should not lose sight of the attractiveness of your content, even in test phases, so as not to bore your community.
How a social media management tool like Levuro helps you find and stick to the best posting time
Okay, all well and good – but even the most disciplined of users are, after all, humans. And using interface-specific analysis tools for each social media channel sounds quite hectic.
Imagine if it was all simpler and more efficient. Let us turn that imagination into reality with the all-in-one social media management tool Levuro.
How Levuro helps you publish at the right times:
1. Easy access to insights
With Levuro, you can monitor the performance of all your posts across multiple platforms. The performance metrics provide you with valuable insights for choosing your publishing frequency. You can also export the statistics to create and further analyze detailed social media reports.
2. Automate publishing
Levuro also automates recurring social media tasks, such as posting to all your channels at a predefined time. This saves an enormous amount of time that you can use for more creative tasks.
In addition to all of the above Levuro can do so much more for your social media management. And the best part: Many of those features are already available in the free version.
Levuro – more time for the things you love!