The Best Times to Post on Social Media

No matter how good your social media content is, it won’t drive business results unless it is viewed by a significant percentage of your audience. Getting your social media posts the highest number of views involves the strategically timed placement of said posts.

There are a number of articles listing very specific posting times B2B companies see success with. The Huffington Post offers one such guide:
“Twitter users are more active on their way to work and are more likely to use Twitter during school or work hours. For maximum retweets, post at 5 p.m., 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. also deliver higher click-through rates. The best days to tweet for business-to-business organizations are Monday through Friday.”

However, just because the average B2B company has increased reach on social media by posting at these specific times, it doesn’t mean your company will too. In reality, there is no universal best time to post on social media because no two companies are targeting the exact same audience with the exact same social media strategy.

Instead of relying on studies and metrics from thousands of B2B companies, rely only on your company’s social media analytics. By using a social media analytics tool to carefully track the views and engagement each of your social media posts receives, you can use that information to slowly tweak your social media posting strategy. Start with a varied posting schedule (which you may or may not base off of the suggested times above) and continue to experiment based on each post’s performance.

While performing these experiments within your social media strategy, it is important to remember three additional factors that drastically impact the visibility of your content:

Time zones: Is your company targeting an audience in one specific demographic, one country or multiple countries? If your business is international, then your social media should “never sleep” since there should be prospects online in every single time zone. If you only do business in one country or specific area, then mold your social scheduling hours to fit their schedule.

Peak Times: If you – and thousands of other B2B companies – follow the posting schedule offered by The Huffington Post, you can imagine there will be a great deal of competition for your audience’s attention during those times. While your instinct may be to use social media monitoring tools to find out when the highest level of activity on your social networks is and target your posts at that time – that may not always be the right course. You should try also experimenting with off-peak times. While your potential audience will be smaller, there will also be fewer companies vying for their attention.

Specific Times: Another way to avoid your social media posts getting overlooked during high-volume times is to get very specific with how you schedule your posts. On average, a Facebook post will receive 50% of its global reach in just 30 minutes. This makes it extremely important to time your social media posts with intentionality. Instead of scheduling your post at 12:00 PM – just like everyone else – experiment with posting at 12:07 PM instead.

What is your take on when companies should post on social media? In your experience, which times and days have worked better than others for your particular industry? Let us know in the comments below!