Social media is here to stay, and it is essential for pleasure and business.
Due to the recent pandemic and its effects on business, social media has become one of the critical channels for official communication, customer service, and advertising.
The catch is that you have to know the best times to post on social media, or your posts can get lost in the endless feeds.
But this can be a challenge if you or your businesses operate across multiple social media platforms.
Each platform may have different best times to post, so understanding why and when are vital to making sure your posts get seen.
We will dive into the best times to post on social media this year, going platform-by-platform to make sure you see the engagement you need.
Does Timing a Social Media Post Matter?
Absolutely!
The timing of social media posts can be the difference between engagement and nothing.
The algorithm of the social media platform you currently post on will be vital.
It will be the primary deciding factor in whether your audience sees your post or whether it is at the bottom of their nearly-endless feed.
The most basic effect of these algorithms is that newer posts show up higher in the feed while older ones will only be published at the bottom.
Understanding the best times to post on social media is incredibly important.
Not just to businesses either, but for those who may be trying to become an influencer or build their own brand.
Even the ability to post at the best times won’t mean that you’ll automatically show up at the top of everyone’s feed.
You’ll also need to make sure you’re creating top-tier content that your customers want.
The Importance of Picking the Best Time to Post on Social Media
Picking the best time to post on each social media platform means your post will be seen by the most people possible at that time.
Posting
What Are the Best Times to Post on Social Media?
This is the big question, and finding the winning answer can put your posts in front of thousands or even millions more users.
The most significant caveat, though, is that the ideal times for your posts will depend significantly on which platform you or your company are using.
Here are the best times to post on the leading social media platforms.
What is the Best Time to Post on Facebook?
Facebook has fascinating and sporadic engagement hot spots.
Monday through Friday, the best time to post on Facebook is at 3 am, with an additional less powerful window running from 8 am to noon.
Tuesday has higher engagement during midday than other weekdays, at 10 am and noon, with a dip in activity at 11 am.
Posts made on Saturday will generally go to waste.
What is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
Instagram sees its highest engagement on weekdays, from about 10 am through noon.
The best days to post are Tuesday and Wednesday, with Saturday and Sunday being relatively uneventful for posters.
Posts made on weekdays from 9 pm to 6 am generally see low activity as well.
What is the Best Time to Post on Twitter?
The best times to post on Twitter are weekdays & Saturdays at 9 am.
Following 9 am, the activity declines steadily through the afternoon.
Thursday tends to see less engagement than other weekdays, but the only dead spots for Twitter engagement are Sundays.
Times to avoid are between 9 pm, and 6 am.
What is the Best Time to Post on LinkedIn?
The best times to post on LinkedIn tend to occur during the height of professional activity.
The best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays from 10 am to 12 pm.
The best days overall to post on the platform are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with the times being mainly in the middle of the day.
Days to avoid on LinkedIn are the weekends.
When is the Best Time to Post on TikTok?
The current short video darling has its prime engagement window Fridays at 5 am and again from 1 pm to 3 pm.
Unlike many other platforms, the weekend is also relatively productive, with Saturday seeing late morning engagement at 11 am and in the evening from 7 pm to 8 pm.
Sunday can create traffic in the mid-afternoon, but late Saturday through early Sunday is a dead zone.
When is the Best Time to Post on Reddit?
Reddit is most active Monday from 6 am to 8 am.
A second opportunity for peak engagement comes on the weekend, with posts Saturday from 7 am to 9 am and Sunday from 8 am to noon being relatively popular.
Keep in mind that each subreddit will have its own peak engagement times, with the middle of the week generally being slow for most.
What is the Best Time to Post on Pinterest?
The best time to pin and post is going to be on Saturday from 8 pm to 11 pm, with activity dropping sharply after 11 pm.
There are also peak engagement times that happen from 2 pm to 4 pm on most days of the week.
Pinterest also enjoys a late-night pinning peak, 8 pm to 1 am.
Is There a Global Best Time to Post on Social Media?
Unfortunately, there’s “global” best time to post on social media.
This is mainly because there are billions of people using social media around the world.
Each country, and even each time zone, will have times when the most significant portion of its residents happen to be on social media.
In the pre-pandemic business landscape, social media use was far more predictable.
This is because there was a far larger population going to and from their job each day, and this schedule meant that most people were using social media outside of those work hours.
Since the pandemic forced many companies to pivot to a remote workforce, these business hours have become increasingly non-standard.
As a result, people are using social media at much less predictable times.
However, there are some times that have been shown to be much more effective for reaching people than others.
Finding these hot spots for the platforms you use is key to driving engagement.
Why is the Best Time to Post Different for Every Social Media Platform?
The biggest reason that each platform has different “best times” to post is that they are used by different audiences.
Not only are they used by different types of people, but they are used for very different purposes as well.
Looking at the differences between each platform can help illustrate this point.
Let’s take a look.
Facebook is the leading social media platform.
It’s used by both the largest and most varied audience, but it’s also used on the greatest array of devices.
It’s frequently used by people at work and at home, which can impact how your posts are viewed based on the use of the platform at the time you post.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, is mostly used by professionals, those working, and those looking for work.
This means it’s primarily used for work-related purposes and for sharing content related to employment.
Twitter is a platform used to directly engage and interact with end-users.
It is one of the most common platforms to be used while on breaks or while commuting to and from work.
It has a wide variety of users, and the post brevity is a big reason that there are millions of tweets each day.
Pinterest is a platform built around leisure and personal interests.
This means that most Pinterest users are browsing during their personal time, like evenings after work.
As you can see, just from the four platforms we’ve dug into here, there is a huge variety of uses.
There are several more major platforms that also have their own unique uses and best times to post, including TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit.
Knowing as much as you can about each one can help you make more sense of the best times to post on each.
What’s the Worst Day to Post on Social Media?
Overall, the consensus for the worst day to post on social media seems to be Sundays.
This is because no matter what demographic or audience the platform hosts, most people are using Sunday as a day for resting and taking part in activities outside the digital space.
However, this isn’t to say that Sundays are a desolate, digital desert.
But while the highest social media traffic is generally seen Tuesdays through Thursdays, Sundays do see the least.
This means that the worst day to post, particularly for any sponsored posts that will measure the return on investment, will be Sundays.
How to Find Your Own Best Times to Post on Social Media
Even though there are some general “best times” to post, your own best times may be slightly different.
Before you schedule any posts, you should compare the generally accepted best times for each platform to the insights and analytics your platforms provide.
Use the Data and Trends
One of the most reliable ways to check your own social media impact is to look at the data provided by your various platforms.
On nearly all platforms, any pages other than conventional personal accounts will be given access to analytics for their posts.
These analytics can be crucial to finding trends among posts you’ve already made.
They can help you isolate times and days where you get the best engagement, as well as days and times where you’re getting lower numbers.
The exact name will differ depending on the platform you’re using, but the function will be the same.
The social media provider will mine the data for you; all you have to do is look at it.
Use a Tool Like BuzzSumo or SproutSocial
For companies or celebrities that have accounts across many or even all of the major social platforms, analyzing engagement data can become complicated.
Worse than that, it can eat up a tremendous amount of time for the social media team that runs the accounts.
Using cross-platform tools like SproutSocial or BuzzSumo can help unify and collate much of that engagement data.
These tools can help you form a more cohesive view of your post’s effectiveness across all channels.
They can help you see, at a glance, what’s working and what isn’t and can highlight what may give you the most significant improvements.
How to Find Out When Your Fans Are Online
Finding a tool like SproutSocial that can give you a deep analysis of your audience is the first step to finding out when most of your fans are online.
It can also help you determine when you’re likely to be able to engage with your customers, but your competition isn’t.
How to Find Posting Times of Successful Posts
The reports generated by your platform-specific insights and analytics, as well as by cross-platform tools like BuzzSumo and SproutSocial, are the key.
They can help you perform a deep analysis of your past posts and engagement trends.
Looking at this data can give you practical, actionable input on when your posts tend to be the most successful.
Conclusion
No matter what platform you use or why you use it, understanding the best times to post on that platform will make the best use of your time there.
Whether you post to drive traffic to your personal content or to bring engagement and reach to posts that your business makes, knowing the best times will make those posts much more effective.
The biggest thing to remember is to be as informed as possible about your chosen platforms and the audience you’re trying to reach.
