When Should You Post on Social Media in 2020

7 min readJul 29, 2020

If you happen to be a digital marketer, it’s a must for you to keep evaluating your online marketing strategies and tweak them for better performance. Considering current market trends, your modern marketing plan would definitely need social media to amplify your brand value and online credibility. The number of active social media users has crossed the astonishing mark of 3.8 billion users, and the stats are expected to increase in the near future. There is a constant battle to drive more traffic on your social channels — you need to stay active and create solid content to keep your audience engaged. However, there’s another aspect that deserves your immediate consideration. There is a science of social timing that ups your game of social media marketing. You need to find when your audience is the most active on social platforms, and post your content on such peak hours to drive maximum views and engagement. If you post on social media at any random time — trust us, your effort may go unnoticed. Moreover, your marketing expenses would go in vain, leaving you with no impressive conversions or online presence.

Why should you consider the best time to post on social media?

The concept of following the best timing on social media is very much relevant. Social media algorithms change frequently, and it depends on the user’s search pattern that the post-show up in their news feed.

This frequent change is the reason that your message should reach the audience at large within the first few hours of posting. Here the science of social timing has a lot to play. Hence it is essential to know the right timings to post your content on social media. In addition to this, there are other factors at play that help to decide better timings to post your content on social media. Different industries perform differently on social media. The reason is the involvement of different verticals that includes consumer goods, media, education, non-profit, technology, and healthcare. These verticals help in establishing a more informed baseline for scheduling posts other than timings.

Keep a track of time and peak user activity hours to nurture more engagement

Following a set timing is a secret to getting the massive traffic for your quality content. Consider the internet as a battlefield at the global level where people are consuming content every other minute. Onto this social media is a crucial channel holding your audience who could be among these people. When you tend to post your content at a given moment, it may be possible that a few people see it. So, you need to publish it at some opportune moments that would help you get the farthest reach for your content. Make sure you keep the guessing game out and should know the correct timings. Make sure you select the right time to share your post to increase the likes, shares, and clicks. Moreover, experimenting with different posting times on various social media platforms would help you know the best response your business receives. Also, it will aid in better decision making.

Peak engagement timings on different social media platforms

As discussed, your investment and marketing efforts have great significance, and so does your timing. Here are the important timings that you must follow while sharing your content on different social media platforms:

What’s the Ideal Time to Post Content on Facebook?

Facebook has one of the largest users’ base around 2.45 billion monthly active users, which could be a great pool of opportunity for marketers. You stand a great chance in reaching a wide set of audience and let them notice your content. However, there is a different angle to the story where Facebook’s algorithm could be an obstacle for big players in the market to reach their audience. But, this doesn’t mean that it is impossible, because we believe that there is an opportunity with every challenge. Family and friends are emphasized more after the recent updates of the Facebook algorithm. So, if you are looking forward to driving genuine engagement, then you stand a better chance. Apart from the recent updates of the Facebook algorithm, here are some important time slots that you must keep in mind while posting:

Wednesday at 11 a.m. and 1–2 p.m.
Weekdays from 9 a.m.–3 p.m.
Avoid Sundays
Avoid before 7 a.m. and after 5 p.m.

When to Post on Instagram for Higher Buzz?

After Facebook, Instagram is another social media platform that is popular nowadays. Around 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day, with a user base of 1 billion active monthly users. The stats show that soon the platform is going to be a prominent leader in the market. However, the algorithm could be a little complex to understand.

Instagram has got rid of its reverse chronological order in the news feed that determines when posts will be shown. It is due to its tricky algorithm. Despite the tricky algorithm, brands still have the margin to market their products most genuinely through stories, live videos, and longer-form videos on IGTV. You need to make sure that you are posting at the right time so that your audience takes notice of your content. Here are the peak timings that you must follow:

Wednesday at 11 a.m. and Friday at 10–11 a.m.
Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m–3 p.m.
Avoid posting on Sundays
Avoid posting late night and early morning from 11 p.m.–3 a.m.

Know the Peak Time to Interact with Your Audience on Twitter

Twitter has a significant market base, with 330 million active users. Unlike other social media platforms, Twitter has a unique chronological timeline.

Twitter highlights posts based on chronological order (based on user interests). This chronological order makes us realize that timeliness is vital so that your posts don’t get lost. Following a timeline would help you to reap the best benefits when you are posting on Twitter. It will not only increase the chance of your followers seeing your posts, but also introduce you to a different set of audience. Also, the best thing is that they may not be following your brand necessarily, but will get to see your posts if someone likes, comments, or retweets your post. So, boost your social media metrics and expand your reach by following the below timeline:

Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Friday at 9 a.m.
Best days to post, Tuesday and Wednesday
Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.–4 p.m.
Avoid posting on Saturday
Avoid posting every day from 10 p.m–4 a.m.

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Building a Notable Industry Presence

LinkedIn has evolved to be one of the largest communities of professionals over the years. It has over 610 million members. The best thing about the LinkedIn platform is that it attracts a niche audience. It has a community of professionals who are looking to network with others in their niche industry. Also, they use it to their advantage to gain insights for professional development. However, the overall audience is smaller, since it is niche-focused, it will attract convertible leads via organic posting. This is the reason; your post has a higher value on LinkedIn. So, to make it noticeable to a broad set, you must follow the proper timeline:

Wednesday from 8–10 a.m. and noon, Thursday at 9 a.m. and 1–2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m.
Best days to post are Wednesday and Thursday.
Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.–2 p.m.
Avoid posting on Sundays
Don’t post every day from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Get Your Pins Noticed on Pinterest on the Right Time

Pinterest is reported to have around 322 million monthly active users. This large user base implies that it can also be a great marketing channel that has potential for both global and local companies. You need to understand where your audience is coming and what its preferences are. This way, you can tailor your content so that they take notice, but first, you need to know the best timings to post on Pinterest.

Every day between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays are the best days.
Tip — avoid posting between the work hours.

What marketer should imply from these timings?

The data given above can prove fruitful to you, and you can draw out a better conclusion from it. You will get critical insights into what value each platform holds for people. Brands can leverage it to drive traffic and figure out which timing works best for them. They can test the peak engagement times, measure the outcomes, and act accordingly. Well, some other factors are also into play when it comes to driving traffic from the content on social media. These factors include brand mentions, products, competitors, industry domain, and a lot more for which you need consistent monitoring. Since you can’t do everything manually, you can take help from some of the best online tools. One such automatic tool for social media monitoring is Mentionlytics. It gives you important insights on finding influencers, sales leads, and will help to grow your brand’s reputation online.

You can try Mentionlytics for free here!

Originally posted on Mentionlytics: https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/when-to-post-on-social-media/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=post