How many times have you heard a friend say something to the tone of "what time do you think I should upload this?" or "when will I post that to get the most traction?"...
In their defence, there is a definitive science to timing your Social Media activities. To maximise the impact of your post you need to make sure you are aligning the timing of your post with the behaviours of your target market. It may sound obvious but there's no point posting something at 2AM and expecting any sort of traction.
Without getting too technical we've outlined here in this article the key factors to take into consideration and some surefire guidelines for timing your posts on the most prominent of social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & Twitter.
Points for consideration:
ALL PLATFORMS ARE DIFFERENT:
While it does seem logical and time-efficient to get all your posts live in a single blast, unfortunately it is not the most impactful. What you need to realise is that across the various Social Media platforms your audience will be changing, their interaction with the app will change and their usage levels will change.
Unfortunately in the hustle & bustle of today's world nobody has time to wait until the perfect moment to upload their post, so what you are faced with is the trade-off of the time-effort vs. the impact of the post.
To be realistic, generally what we advise here at Future Proof is to use specific timing of your posts for posts where you want to maximise your coverage (e.g. social media competition, brand announcements, special offers, guest podcast appearances / articles, media launch coverage, brand announcements. For smaller / more reactive and day-to-day posts the benefit of timing your posts correctly might be far outweighed by the cost of doing so, so we generally advise to get them out across each platform at once.
OBJECTIVE / TARGET MARKET:
It is important to make sure that you consider who you are targeting your post at, fall in-line with their daily behaviours and make sure that your post is prevalent at the times in which they pick-up their phones or log into the respective platforms.
Audience Types / Target markets could include groups such as B2C (Business-Customer), B2B (Business-Business), Technology, Fitness, Sports or even be more specific to target parents or even teachers.
To ensure that this article is relevant for all we will be providing an overarching guidance across the various platforms, use this guidance and layer in the knowledge of your audience's behaviours to ensure that your post receives the optimum amount of coverage.
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACHIEVE?:
What is the overall objective of the post? Are you trying to make a sale? Are you trying to drive visitors to your site? Are you trying to build awareness of your brand or a specific brand activation? Each of these activities will require a different thought process as your post will need to fit into the pattern of someone's day. Studies have shown that people are more likely to read an article over their lunch than they are to make a purchase, but the propensity to purchase is far greater over the weekend as people are in a better mood (I wonder why?) or immediately after payday.
Make sure that before you post you consider what you are expecting your audience to do with your post and make sure to include the specific call to action.
GENERAL HINTS & TIPS TO CONSIDER:
1) The weekend performance should be considered and analysed completely separately to weekday patterns
2) Make sure to frequently check your platform analysis / insight tools to identify patterns, trends or behaviours of your audience to optimise your post timings.
3) Consistency is key, make sure that you are following your times and have a steady flow of content.
4) Create engaging content that people will interact with and don't just scroll past
5) Make sure your post is live ahead of the target window to capture all of the target audience, posting in the middle of the window will exclude a large number of your potential audience.
FACEBOOK:
Don't believe the hype! Despite what you might think, Facebook still remains the kingpin when it comes to Social Media. Even with all the recent negative press Facebook is the most powerful tool for engaging with your target audience.
Regardless of your activities across the other platforms, you need to be present on Facebook. It is a fundamental expectation from your audience. Any company worth their salt will have an active presence on Facebook.
The guys over at CoSchedule have pulled together a nice infograph a very to depict the optimum posting days and times for Facebook Users, they've also written a very useful article on the topic here (Link).
Guide: Facebook users are accessible at all times but it is key to make sure you are prevalent at the times in which users have some moments to spare e.g. commuting, lunch time & late evening.
TWITTER:
Due to the amount of posts being generated on Twitter on a daily basis, it is very easy to get lost in the mix of it all. To tackle this the single-most powerful tool for engagement is to be constantly active. The more you post and engage with others the more engagement you will receive on your posts.
Our guidance at Future Proof is to make sure that you are constantly present (a once per hour policy is a good starting point) but if you can make sure to have your posts in ahead of the daily commute you will be able to capture the attention and coverage of the masses travelling to and from work.
Guide: Twitter is often seen as a news feed by users who primarily scroll through during downtimes, the daily commute is seen to receive massive engagement from users.
INSTAGRAM:
Instagram posts have a significantly longer lifespan than posts on say Facebook or Twitter generally speaking an Instagram post will receive coverage well into the 36-48 hour mark after posting.
Despite the extended coverage it is important to make sure that your post is landing at the right time. Our general guidance on Instagram is to post in the early afternoon (1pm-2pm), by doing this you will ensure at a time that takes in two of the larger engagement windows:
1) Dinner Time:
Posting around dinner time will ensure that your post is live and gathering momentum just as people sit down to relax for their evening browse. The added bonus here is that your content will still be prevalent in the early morning as a reduced amount of content will be created in the middle of the night meaning that you will catch the morning rush and commuter engagement with Instagram.
2) Early Afternoon:
Posting in the early afternoon means that you can catch the users who are engaging on their daily commute while also landing with the users who engage in the late evening.
Guide: Instagram is a primarily mobile platform which means that users are accessible at all times. However, usage in the late evening is significantly increased as people wind-down at the end of the day.
LINKEDIN:
LinkedIn is a tricky one to navigate as it takes on a completely different dynamic than other sites. Being brutally honest, consumers typically do not reach out through LinkedIn, which is fair because by definition it is a professional network.
However, that does not mean that LinkedIn is not a powerful tool for your brand. Despite the engagement rates on LinkedIn being far lower by comparison, the engagements received tend to be far more meaningful and powerful in nature. Your goal on LinkedIn should be to become a credible source for sharing hints, tips, articles and industry insights with your network. The more regarded you become for consistently high-quality content the more visitors and meaningful engagements you will receive.
Similarly to Instagram, posts on LinkedIn have a much greater lifespan than those of Twitter or Facebook.
Broadly speaking as LinkedIn is a professional network the best time for post engagement tends to be during the week as people are in the professional headspace. There is a lot of power in having your posts ready for people on their Monday commute as the post has the power to last for the full week. However, what has been typically seen is that posting to LinkedIn on Wednesday between 3pm & 5pm is the most powerful.
Guide: LinkedIn is primarily focussed on professionals, the guidance for LinkedIn is to target your posts to have your post live for those travelling to and from work as they will be in that frame of mind at that particular point in the day. Weekend posts are seen to perform poorly.
Hopefully, some of the above tips can help you in driving growth and engagement with your posts and if you need any advice feel free to reach out. We are always here to help!!