Getting user engagement on social media seems like a fairly easy feat, right? You create amazing content, share blog posts on your social media accounts and publish updates regularly, mixing up content between articles, images, videos, etc. However, for some reason, you don’t seem to be getting many likes, comments or shares on your various accounts.

While the content you share is crucial, your lack of user engagement could be due to the times you are posting. Are you strategic about when each update goes live on each social media platform?

Thanks to social media tools like Hootsuite, you can craft updates in advance and schedule them out for the specific days and times you want them to go live. Keep reading for a guide to know when to publish your updates on each social media platform.

The Best Times to Post Social Media Updates on Facebook

While there is research that shows ideal days and times to post your Facebook updates, the absolute best way to strategically schedule your social media posts is to review your company’s Insights.

How to Find Facebook’s Social Media Insights

When you go to your Facebook page, click on the “Insights” tab at the top and then scroll down past your Page Summary and 5 Most Recent Posts, to a link that says “See All Posts.” This will bring up a screen that shows you when your fans are online, organized by both days and times:

As you can see based on our analytics, it’s best to publish our updates around 7am or 8am and 6pm as that’s when most of our followers are online.

Then, if you hover your mouse over each day at the top, you’ll be able to see the Times chart based on that specific day, too. For example, here’s what Monday looks like:

This can tell you that, while 8am is a good time for most of the week, on Mondays 9am may be better.

Industry Research: Ideal Times for Facebook’s Social Media Updates

While scheduling your posts with the times in your Insights is certainly a strategic place to start, it’s also helpful to play around with varying publishing times to see if your engagement increases at alternative times. If you decide to deviate from your company’s Facebook Insights, you may want to start by experimenting with industry social media research.

According to recent Facebook studies:

  • Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to post
  • Updates with the most interactions were published between 9am and 2pm
  • The highest audience activity was between 8pm and 9pm
  • Photos received the highest comments
    • 10am-11am
    • 1pm-2pm
    • 3pm-4pm
  • Videos received the most comments
    • 9am-11am
    • 12pm-1pm

Remember to pay attention to your analytics regarding shares, comments and likes as you publish your Facebook updates at various times, and note if you see any trends as to which social media posts perform best when.

The Best Times to Post Social Media Updates on Twitter

While Twitter provides analytics regarding which tweets (or updates) receive the most impressions and engagements, the platform doesn’t break down the social media data quite as nicely as Facebook.

How to Find Twitter’s Social Media Analytics

If you sign into your account and go to analytics.twitter.com, you’ll see an overview of your activity. Then scroll down past the 28-day summary, into the current month. Right below the “Top Tweet,” you’ll see a button that says “View Tweet activity” and next to it there’s a link that says, “View all Tweet activity.” Click on that link, and it will pull up an overview of all your updates. The chart at the top will break down your tweets by day, which can be helpful in choosing which days to focus on publishing more social media updates on Twitter.

Industry Research: Ideal Times for Twitter’s Social Media Updates

Still, if this doesn’t give you enough insight regarding when to publish your social media updates on Twitter, there is research to get you started.

  • The best days to post are Tuesdays and Wednesdays
  • Tweets between 11am and 12pm perform best

As with Facebook, it’s best to create a schedule to form a baseline, and then start publishing at different times to see if you notice any positive changes in your engagement. Pay attention to trends you’re able to notice so you can find the best time for your brand to push your tweets through.

The Best Times to Post Social Media Updates on LinkedIn

As a general rule of thumb, LinkedIn updates tend to perform best during the week; because it’s considered the most professional of the social media platforms, the majority of users only sign in when they’re thinking about work.

How to Find LinkedIn’s Social Media Analytics

To find your brand’s LinkedIn analytics, go to your company page and click “Manage page.” Then select “Analytics” from the bar at the top and, when the drop down menu pops up, click on “Updates.” This will bring you to a line graph of your updates’ impressions, and from there you can click the drop down menu to look specifically at clicks, comments, likes, shares, etc.

By looking at each different metric, especially those related to your social media goals, you can see which days your updates are performing best and strategically select which days to prioritize publishing updates.

Industry Research: Ideal Times for LinkedIn’s Social Media Updates

Even if you know what day(s) you want to focus on, which times are ideal? LinkedIn studies show:

  • Most clicks and shares are on Tuesdays, 11am-12pm
  • The best times to post are 7am-8am and 5pm-6pm
  • The peak time for users to be on the platform are 12pm and 5-6pm

The Best Times to Post Social Media Updates on Instagram

The nice thing about Instagram is, much like Facebook, the platform’s Insights break down social media users’ time online to help you maximize the best times to publish your posts.

How to Find Instagram’s Social Media Insights

To find your analytics, go to your page’s profile and then click the little graph in the very top right-hand corner.

From there, you can scroll down to see a daily breakdown of how many interactions you’ve received on your posts, as well as how many other users found you from the Discovery tab.

Then, if you click on the “Audience” tab (to the right of “Activity”) and scroll down to the bottom, you can see a breakdown of which days your followers are online as well as times they’re online each day.

As you can see, these social media analytics will give you a fantastic starting point to figuring out the best time to post your Instagram updates. Still, are you curious what the industry research says?

Industry Research: Ideal Times for Instagram’s Social Media Updates

According to a recent Instagram study by Latergramme:

  • On average over the whole week, the best times to post are 2am and 5pm
  • When you break down the data by day, you may want to consider varying the times you publish your updates
    • Mondays: 7pm and 10pm
    • Tuesdays: 3am and 10pm
    • Wednesdays: 5pm
    • Thursdays: 7am and 11pm
    • Fridays: 1am and 8pm
    • Saturdays: 12am and 2am
    • Sundays: 5pm

The Best Times to Post Social Media Updates on Pinterest

Depending on your business’ industry, a strong presence on Pinterest could be vital to social media success. How do you make sure you’re Pinning (a.k.a. publishing updates) at the optimal times?

How to Find Pinterest’s Social Media Analytics

Although it’s not as intuitive to find, you can sign into your Pinterest account and then visit analytics.pinterest.com to find helpful data. If you click the “More” link next to “Your Pinterest profile” you can see a chart that shows Impressions, Saves and Clicks broken down by day, as well as which pins (or social media updates) performed best on your account all-time.

You can also click on the “More” link next to “People you reach” to see analytics about your followers, including how many you have and their interests.

While this information can certainly help you fine-tune your Pinterest strategy, it doesn’t give you much insight into the best days and times to publish your updates.

Industry Research: Ideal Times for Pinterest’s Social Media Updates

According to industry research, the best times to Pin are:

  • 2pm to 4pm
  • 8pm to 11pm
  • 2am to 4am

The best day depends on the topic

  • Sunday: Food and crafts
  • Monday: Fitness
  • Tuesday: Gadgets and technology
  • Wednesday: Quotes
  • Thursday: Outfits
  • Friday: Gifts and humor
  • Saturday: Travel

Of course, as with all the other social media platforms, it’s best to see what works best for your target audience.

Finding the Social Media Sweet Spot

As you can tell, there’s a lot of information available to fine-tune your social media strategy. Look at your analytics, experiment with different days and times and watch for trends that emerge so you can find the best publishing schedule for each of your social platforms.

Do you want help managing your company’s social media channels? We’re happy to assist! Contact us today for a complimentary consultation!

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