The Best Times for Posting.
Social media may appear to be a place where you can freely post about whatever is on your mind and whenever you feel like it. However, businesses must adopt a more strategic strategy.
Every successful business has a data-driven posting plan that determines the optimum day and time to post. Even the most creative social media postings won’t help your business if they aren’t shared at the correct moment.
You must post according to your audience’s social media usage habits to deliver a seamless experience to your brand’s audience.
When you publish during high-traffic hours, you have a better chance of extending your reach and capturing your audience’s attention.
So how do we find the best day and hour to post our content? Let’s look a bit further.
Consider the Algorithms
Even using the social media algorithms, it’s crucial to obtain engagement within the first few hours of posting in order for the social sites to show your posts to a larger portion than your normal audience. Finding the best times to post for your specific brand can also help.
However, I think we should move away from studies on the optimal time to publish on social media. While the research is well-intentioned, they are susceptible to a number of flaws.
Data and Statistics.
With aggregated data studies, they will advise you on the ideal times to post. The problem is that the data comprises both organizations and individuals from various places and industries, whereas your target audience is specific to you.
It’s difficult to say whether the average ideal time to post for a variety of businesses, from the data collected, applies to your niche.
So the research isn’t valid?
No, it can be a good place to start, especially if it offers plausible reasons for the ideal times to publish.
For example, if you’re creating a completely new social media profile and don’t have any data to work with this data will steer you in the right direction.
It is not, however, a template for success that can be copied and pasted and used without checking.
Do Your Own Research.
Go beyond simply choosing the “best times” from the studies and consider why particular times could be ideal for posting.
Perhaps it’s because people check Facebook before going to work. Maybe it’s because housewives are going through Instagram while feeding the baby late at night.
It will almost certainly alter for each “group” of people with whom you are attempting to interact.
Make a profile of the “typical” person in your niche, including when they are likely to be online and which social media accounts you think they use.
Think Logically.
Consider when your target audience is likely to be online and responding to your social media posts. for example;
- Commute time in the mornings and evenings.
- Breaks for lunch and afternoon tea.
- B2B companies would work best during the week, whereas B2C brands would work best on weekends.
- You can also boost your reach if you know your target audience and their approximate location. For example, if you live in Australia and your target market is in the United States, you’ll want to figure out the time difference so your message doesn’t go unnoticed at 3 a.m.
- Different groups of people use different social media platforms. If your niche is the younger market, you may want to consider Tik Tok or if you are targeting the gay crowd you may want to consider Grindr.
What is your target audience doing throughout the day?
Let’s say your target market is “parents with children.” It’s probably not a good idea to post on Social media around 8 a.m., because that’s when most parents are getting their children ready for school.
After the school run, when busy parents have had time to go home, chuck on some laundry, and then sit down for a bit with a cup of coffee, might be a better time to provide something for them to read. Let’s say 10:30 a.m. Or maybe 11 a.m.?
Make a Posting Schedule.
Make a posting schedule for yourself and stick to it. You can schedule many weeks’ worth of social media postings at once or on a weekly basis. It’s entirely up to you!
This isn’t a tried-and-true method, but two to three months of blogging should provide you with enough data to work with and figure out your best times.
Each connected social account should have its own posting schedule. When you add a new publishing time to one of your social accounts’ schedules, it should not be applied to all of your associated accounts.
Use online posting tools.
For example, use a free resource like Tailwind.
Tailwind is most known as a Pinterest scheduling tool, but it’s really more of an all-in-one marketing toolset.
You can do the following with Tailwind:
- Quickly upload images.
- Plan your pins for the best results.
- Measure and analyze the performance of your pins.
- Tailwind Communities can help you reach new audiences.
- It’s also worth mentioning that, while Tailwind now supports Instagram scheduling and publishing, the majority of its capabilities are focused on Pinterest.
You can also use WordPress plugins like Sassy Social Share.
Social Media Data.
Here are some charts showing the supposed optimal times for posting to various social media platforms. If you have no experience or no data for yourself this is a good place to start. All times are Eastern Standard Time, please adjust for your country.
FaceBook.
Instagram.
Linkedin.
YouTube.
Pinterest.
Tik Tok.
Conclusion.
Posting to social media at the right time for your audience will certainly extend your reach and improve the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. But there is a lot more involved. You need to write great content, consider SEO, and also incorporate an email strategy into your overall marketing approach.
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