Best Times To Post On Social Media

Is there really a best time to post on social media?

Social media is the life and blood of the marketing strategies for small and medium sized businesses.

An active social media profile that has relevant, informative and engaging posts goes a long way in keeping the business at the top of the minds of the audience.

In this post you will learn about the best times to post content on different social media platforms and how to find out the best suited time slots for your business.

However, simply posting a lot of content, pictures, or videos on all or any of the social media channels whenever you want to post does not really work that well.

There are some time slots that work better than the others and these time slots are different for different platforms.

So, when is the best time for you to post on Social Media?

To put it simply, the best time to post would be whenever your target audience is the most active on that particular social media platform.

However, reviewing research online we have been able to come up with some global trends and certain specifics that can be indicative of the best times you can plan your social media calendar around.

Once you have done that, I strongly recommend you bookmark this page, because it can act as your bible for developing an effective and carefully planned social media calendar.

First off, download a copy of this helpful guide...

best times to post on social media

Now that you have a brief idea and a broad timeline to help you plan your social media calendar let’s delve deeper into it.

What is the best time to post on Facebook?

Marketing on Facebook has become a lot more challenging recently as the organic reach has taking a tumble. There is a popular opinion that claims that Facebook is gradually turning into a pay-to-play platform which is an opinion I tend to agree with.

However, it is also my belief that your organic efforts still play a big role in the way your business fares on Facebook.

In recent years Facebook’s algorithm has started focusing on friends, family and meaningful connections.

This means that the content you put up on Facebook must be developed and then optimised to drive genuine engagement.

In addition to the type of content, the timing of posting this content is quite important, just like for Instagram (discussed earlier).

​Let’s take a look at the best times to post on Facebook.​

1. The best times to post on Facebook – Wednesday at 11 am and 1 pm
2. Overall best day to post on Facebook – Wednesday
3. The safest times to post on Facebook – Weekdays 9 am–3 pm
4. The least engaging day on Facebook – Sunday
5. The least amount of engagement – early mornings and evenings before 7 am and after 5 pm

What it really means?

It doesn’t really come as a surprise that the engagement on Facebook, like other social media is at its peak in the mid-week.

The safest times to post are on every day of the week from the morning to mid-afternoon. When I say safe, I mean that in these time slots the engagement is more or less consistent.

In general, the stats show that people tend to check Facebook intermittently all through the middle of the day, but the engagement reaches its peak around lunch time when people have more time to scroll through the feeds and engage with posts that they really like.

Late nights, early mornings and the weekend experience relatively low engagement levels. Though there is little bit of a spike on Saturday midday, but it doesn’t really seem like it is a great idea.

Breaking it further down

Facebook may be a little tougher to crack than in previous years but it shouldn’t stop you from going the good old organic route.

As a part of a holistic organic strategy optimising the time slots for posting is important if you want to get better exposure on Facebook.

Following is a breakdown of the best times to post on Facebook according to the nature of the business.

B2C Businesses

For consumer product businesses, Facebook gets engagement intermittently during the weekdays around the break times, it may be the lunch hours or the afternoon break.

So, the time slots that work best for B2C businesses are 9 am to 10 am then between 12 noon and 1 pm and then from 4 pm to 5 pm.

B2B Businesses

For B2B, the best times to get engagement for your posts on Facebook would be when the brain just needs a break from it all.

So, here the perfect time is at 9 am and then between 3 pm to 4 pm.

What is the best time to post on Pinterest?

As a marketing platform, Pinterest hasn’t really gotten the attention it deserves. Pinterest can be a great platform for you particularly if strong visuals are an important part of your content marketing strategy.

Timing doesn’t really play a very big part in the way a post performs but being consistent does.

Let’s take a look at the best times to post on Pinterest.

1. ​The best times to post on Pinterest – Friday and Saturday between 8 pm and 11 pm
2. Overall best day to post on Pinterest – Friday and Saturday
3. The safest times to post on Pinterest – 2 am to 4 am and 2 pm to 4 pm
4. The least amount of engagement – every day from 1 pm to 3 pm

What is the best time to post on Twitter?

Twitter is one of the most valuable platforms when it comes to establishing a strong connection with the audiences and managing the customer care and support. I'm surprised that more small business owners don't use the platform.

Timeliness is really important when it comes to handling Twitter profiles. Only some of the posts on Twitter are highlighted out of chronological sequence on the basis of the user interests.

In general, majority of the users are simply catching up on the latest posts from the accounts they are following.

This clearly means that if you post in the non-peak hours, you are going to miss out on a massive chunk of your prospective engagement.

On an average day, around 500 million tweets are sent out. It is for this reason that Twitter is regarded as a treasure trove of social opinions which can help you shape up your own brand strategy and may even help you take key decisions.

Let’s take a look at the best times to post on Twitter.

1. The best times to post on Twitter – Wednesday and Friday at 9 am
2. Overall best day to post on Twitter – Tuesday and Wednesday
3. The safest times to post on Twitter – Weekdays 8 am– 4 pm
4. The least engaging day on Twitter – Saturday
5. The least amount of engagement – every day from 10 pm to 4 am

What it really means?

Twitter comes alive a little earlier in the morning than other social media platforms, which may be because while Twitter users go about their day they take a moment to catch up on and mull over the major updates or events of the day related to their interests.

The peak engagement times spill over into lunch time and then start decreasing from late afternoon to early evening and drops off nearer bedtime.

Quite similar to other social media networks, Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to post on Twitter and the weekends hardly see any engagement to speak of.

Breaking it further down

Twitter is unique because of the massive volume of content that steadily makes its way through it.

However, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have to optimise the timing of your posts on Twitter.

Following is a breakdown of the best times to post on Twitter according to the nature of the business.

B2C Businesses

Due to the frequent and real-time updates, people are checking in to their Twitter feeds throughout the day. 

However, the best times to get meaningful engagement would be when the users are just waking up and as they are winding down for the day as this is the time when people engage the most with the web.

The best time slots for the B2C businesses to post on Twitter are – between 8 am and 10 am, at 12 noon, and then between 7 pm and 9 pm.

B2B Businesses

There’s only a slight difference in the time slots that are best suited for B2C and B2B businesses when it comes to Twitter.

For B2B businesses the time slots that get the most engagement are – between 7 am and 8 am, at 11 am, 6 pm and 9 pm.

What is the best time to post on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn has a more targeted audience and caters to a certain ‘niche’ audience as compared to the other social media platforms I am talking about in the rest of the post. LinkedIn is growing and looks like it is going to continue doing so and it is a platform I am devoting a lot more time at present.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that there s only a niche audience on LinkedIn, the marketing power of the platform is not to be taken lightly. The platform users are quite motivated, which means you will get more leads, particularly for B2B marketing.

Let’s take a look at the best times to post on LinkedIn.

1. The best times to post on LinkedIn – Wednesday between 9 am and 10 am
2. Overall best day to post on LinkedIn – Wednesday
3. ​The safest times to post on LinkedIn – Tuesday to Friday 8 am– 2 pm
4. ​The least engaging day on LinkedIn – Sunday
5. ​The least amount of engagement – every day from 9 pm to 3 am​

What it really means?

LinkedIn enjoys a good mix of corporate-oriented professionals, thought leaders, job seekers, and those looking for company page curation.

Hence, the activity on the platform is dense during the workdays.

Mondays are mostly spent rushing through the weekend backlogs, so LinkedIn observes the first spike in activity on Tuesday which then tapers down after 3pm.

By the same logic, it is only natural that the activity levels and engagement is pretty low on the weekends when people try and take a step back from work and their devices.

Breaking it further down

Since LinkedIn caters to a niche of professionals, it is sometimes assumed that the platform will only be active on weekends and after or before work hours.

However, as we discussed earlier, the case is quite contrary.

Following is a breakdown of the best times to post on LinkedIn according to the nature of the business.

B2C Businesses

The platform is not really known for capturing consumers’ attention as much as the professionals, but there is a noticeable jump in activity around the lunch hour for B2C businesses as that might be when users may be scrolling through their feed for entertainment.

The best suited time slot for posting on LinkedIn for B2C businesses is at 12 noon.

B2B Businesses

The B2B businesses are more professionally focused which is why you can engage them before work, at lunch, and after their evening commute.

The best suited time slots to post on LinkedIn when it comes to B2B businesses are at 8 am, from 10 am to 12 noon, and then again at 6 pm.