How to Find The Best Times to Post on Social Media

There are so many articles that tell you statistically what the best times to post all of your social media updates are. But what about you, individually, and your own social media? How can you tell when your own followers are online and most likely to engage with your posts, rather than just following statistics?

Luckily there are ways to help you pinpoint the best times for you to post on your Facebook Page and your Twitter account; unfortunately for the other social media, we still have to rely on some stats.

(But if any of you guys want to create an analytics reporter for Pinterest or Google+, you let me know when it’s set up because I am all about that life.)

Today we’ll talk about how to find your perfect times for posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and (sorry I can’t be more specific) statistically what the best times are for posting to Pinterest, Google+, and LinkedIn.

Yeah, guys. We’re going all in and talking about all six of the most popular social networks.

Facebook

Your Facebook Page has the most badass insights of pretty much any social network, so be sure that you keep an eye on them.

Today we’re going to focus on the tab called Posts. It looks a little bit like this:

This chart shows you the times that your audience is actually online. Right now, we’re looking at the times that my Facebook Page‘s fans are most commonly online for the whole week. You can also hover your mouse over each day of the week and see when your fans are online during each specific day.

Although there are lots of other goodies for you to enjoy in your Facebook insights, I want you to stick around on this page for awhile. Play around with it and look at what times most of your audience is online each day.

Now, there are two ways that you can go about this.

1. You can look for your highest peak in your weekly average (based on my above stats, it would be 1PM for me) and schedule all of your posts for right before that time all week.

Side note: It’s good practice to have the post go live a little bit before your highest peak (so based on the above stats, maybe 12-12:30PM) so that it’s already up when everyone is getting online.

or 2. Customize your post schedule each day based on that specific day’s highest peak.

It’s really up to you. You will get similar results since the week’s highest peak is based on that week’s average.

Best Days: Survey says, I mean statistics show that Thursdays through Sundays are the best days to post on Facebook. (Thursdays and Fridays are top notch because the less people want to be at work, the more likely they are to be on Facebook. Weekends are golden because nobody is at work, so they’re all on Facebook!)

Twitter

Twitter also has some pretty awesome analytics (just go to analytics.twitter.com to check yours out–sometimes I can spend hours in there), but unfortunately they do not provide you with the times that your audience is actually online.

Luckily for us, there is an awesome software out there called Tweriod that does this for us. You simply sync your Twitter account with it, request a free analysis (the free analysis only covers your last 1000 followers–otherwise you need to go with the premium analysis), and then check out your results.

There are a few different graphs to check out, but the hourly graph is the most descriptive. Your general stats will give you your audience’s peak online times flat out and also gives you the chance to sync your ideal posting schedule to Buffer.

(As you guys know, I’m a huge advocate for Buffer, so this makes me very happy!)

The posting schedule that Tweriod has given me is 1:08PM, 2:03PM, 4:15PM, 5:08PM, and 6:11PM. I will sometimes post earlier than 1 because I get impatient, but have seen for myself that my tweets don’t get nearly the same attention that they do later in the afternoon.

Sign up for Tweriod to get your own personalized tweeting schedule and start tweeting at your own optimum times!

Best Days: I’ll be straightforward and say that I don’t trust a Twitter page that doesn’t tweet at least once everyday. However, stats show that the B2B industry sees better results during the weekday, whereas the B2C industry sees better results on the weekend. It’s funny how much sense that makes.

Instagram

This is one of those magical social networks where you don’t have to post daily (or even every-other-daily) and you can still succeed as long as you’re sticking to your brand and posting awesome pictures that your audience still wants to see.

Another magical thing about Instagram is this amazing little (FREE!) analytics resource called Iconosquare. Literally any question you have about your Instagram stats, Iconosquare has the answer. It is like Instagram god.

It also provides an awesome little graph for you to show when your community is most likely to engage with your posts, giving you a few perfect windows for posting.

Sign up for Iconosquare and request your first analytics reading. Then, you’ll go to Optimization. The first graph at the top of this section is called Best time to post. Voila!

The largest black circles around the edge describe your current popular posting times and the largest light grey circles inside the graph tell you the optimal times to post for the most engagement. So based on the above graph, Saturdays at 9AM, Mondays at 7PM, Tuesdays at 8PM, and Sundays at 10PM are four of the top posting times for my specific Instagram audience.

Best Days: Typically, they say that Instagram really doesn’t have any “best day.” So your best bet is going to be to check out Iconosquare to find out when your audience is going to be online.

Pinterest

This is the social media network that keeps everyone from getting to bed at a decent time, and the statistics prove it. Have you ever been caught up way past bedtime, still endlessly pinning away? Yep, me too. And thousands of other people.

The best times to post on Pinterest are from 8-11PM each night, with a slight jump in engagement between the hours of 2-4PM as well.

Whenever I have a post go live, I typically pin it to my Blog Posts board sometime in the morning then wait until later in the evening to pin it to another relevant board.

Best Day: Hands down, Saturday is the best day out of the week for Pinterest. Since Sundays are for relaxing, no one has a strict bedtime on Saturday nights, so what better to do than sit in bed and pin? #nuffsaid

Google+

What is your personal opinion of Google+? Personally, I really wish that this social network would just kind of go kaput and cease to exist. It’s confusing to me and I really hate the interface. Yes, I know I shouldn’t say this as a social media manager, but it is seriously my biggest weakness.

However, and I’ve mentioned this before, I have seen some great results from Google+ Communities. If you take advantage of the communities, then you don’t need to worry about days/times that you’re posting, since community members are more likely to check their communities than their feeds.

If you’re posting to your own profile or business page, then the optimum time is first thing in the workday. Usually between 8AM and 11AM is the most active time frame for Google+.

Best Days: This platform is very similar to LinkedIn in that it’s used by a large number of professionals. So this means that weekdays are the top days for posts.

LinkedIn

This is your go-to professional network. If you own a B2B company or are a freelancer, then this is where you need to be.

Similar to Google+, you should take full advantage of the groups that this network has to offer, but I think you get a lot just out of posting to your feed as well.

Since it’s another professional network, it’s best to post during work hours.

Best Days: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are your best bets. On Mondays, everyone is geared up for the work week and gets the most work done (no time for LinkedIn) and on Fridays, everyone is sick of work, waiting for the hours to drag by until the weekend, and not even thinking about LinkedIn.

P.S. What to Post on Each Social Media Outlet & How to Use Hashtags to Promote Your Business