I really think this is something you need to experiment with, with your own audience. You’ll find a lot of parenting blogs, for instance, post to their social media at around 2.45pm and quite early in the morning to make the most of idle before-school-pick-up times or before-the-kids-wake-up spare minutes.
It’s a great idea to go through your social media accounts and see what times you posted and what the response is. Of course, people are not only responding to the timing of your post, but if you look a little deeper you MAY INDEED find patterns that you can make the most of when it comes to optimising your social posts.
If you check Facebook Insights you can do a little time-of-day audit via those.
I also check my Twitter stats/insights via Buffer to see what worked when.
Instagram are slowly rolling out insights for their platform too. In the mean time Simply Measured can give you a snapshot of what’s going on there.
According to the experts, the best times to post are…
Busiest Days
Thursdays and Fridays are the busiest days on Facebook – engagement is 18% higher – as the work week nears its end people are sneaking peeks at social media more often. Anecdotally, mums and dads tend to also be active after 7.30pm and that’s the best time to catch them as they scroll through social while they watch telly.
Time of (Any) Day
1pm is the best time for shares
3pm is the best time for clicks
Different days/times of day attract different users..
Business to business type accounts – weekdays are the busiest/best times to post
Personal/blogger/consumers however are more active on weekends on Twitter
5pm is the best time to retweet or attract retweets with your update across the board.
Commuting times are high activity times for the average Twitter user – so between 7 and 9am and between 5 and 6pm.
12 – 6pm is the best time of day to catch most Twitter users BUT again it depends on your target audience – mums and dads tend to be active after 7.30pm and that’s the best time to catch them.
Saturdays are Pinterest’s peak day for all users.
The best time to pin is between 8pm and 11pm.
Monday is the best day to post.
Before 9am and after 5pm are the best times – but lunchtime is good too!
Instagram users are online when they are not working.
Your readers
Definitely take what the experts have to say into account, but it’s important to do your own research on what’s working for you and your exiting audience – and then factor in these peak times to attract new readers/followers too!
Let me know how you go!