Best Times to Post on Social Media

Social media is 24/7. Someone is always tweeting, blogging or posting. For a small business, this can be challenging. You can’t be online all day. So, how do you know the best times to reach your audience? There are a couple of difference ways to determine when your audience is online.

We use a social media tool. There are many great social media monitoring and reporting tools around. I personally like HootSuite. I can use their AutoScheduling functionality to schedule my posts at the best times to reach my audience.

Another great tool is Timing+ on Google+. Timing+ analyzes your historical post data to determine what time of day has the most potential for your posts to have the greatest impact.

The best times to post on social media is definitely a hot topic and has resulted in a lot of fantastic research. Research recommends that you focus on posting during the following times:

• Facebook – between 10 am and 4pm Monday thru Thursday.
• Twitter – between 1pm and 3pm Monday thru Thursday.
• LinkedIn – focus on posting before and after business hours, 7 am to 9 am and 5pm to 6pm Tuesday thru Thursday.
• Google+ – 9am to 11am on workdays.
• Pinterest – This is the one social network you should focus on posting during weekday evenings and on the weekends (specifically 2pm to 4pm and 8pm to 1am on weekdays). The best time to pin items on Pinterest is on Saturday morning.

While this information will give you a great base to build from, it is definitely not the answer for every business. When determining when to post on social media make sure to consider your customers, your product or service, and the types of messages you are posting.