Every serious user of the internet has at one time or another speculated on what day or time of day would be the best time to post a tweet or notification on Facebook or another social media platform.
When you’re doing business with the aid of social media, you want to engage and make contact, otherwise it’s a waste of time. And if time is money, it makes sense for you to schedule your social media calendar in the timeliest way possible—especially when a tweet has a half-life of 18 minutes and a Facebook post is fading fast after 90 minutes.
Below is a listing of optimal times for posting on main social platforms. (The objective in researching this data and information was to arrive at a near-consensus of best times. If specific times were subject to widely-varying opinions, they were not entered.)
Facebook:
Peak day Sunday.
Most shares 1pm.
Highest CTR 1 to 4pm peaking at 3 pm.
Generally post at night for highest interaction. Nix after dinner and before work.
Engagement rates 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays and 32% higher on weekends.
LinkedIn:
Peak days Tuesday and Thursday.
Most interaction right before work and after work—7 am and 6 pm.
Twitter:
Peak days Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday.
Peak times 9am-3pm.
Retweets highest 5pm, 10-11 pm, and Sunday.
Brand tweet rate higher on weekdays.
Higher CTR noon and 6 pm and later.
(To increase CTR for articles and links pay attention to optimal times rather than when people are sleeping—makes sense—or having busy day at work.)
Tweet frequency is 5 per day per individual and 30 per day per business (medium to large).
Email:
Peak email campaign days Tuesday, Wednesday, peaking on Thursday.
Best send time 2-5pm.
Thursday is clearly the peak day for emails sent, open rates, and CTR.
Best send time for email campaign is 6–10am.
Dead zones: 10pm-6am, 10am-12pm, 2pm-3pm.
Best send times property and financial-related offers 3-5pm.
Best send times holiday promotion and B2B promotions 5-7pm.
Consumer promotions 7-10pm after dinner.
(For general email: open rates and CTR were all found to be highest during early morning and weekends.)
Blogs:
Peak days are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (87% of blogs are published during work week).
11am is the highest traffic hour for blogs (70% of all blogs read in the morning).
Almost all blogs are published during work hours, but shares are highest for posts published 9pm to midnight.
Almost all brands post blogs during the work week.
Some very popular blogs have experimented by publishing multiple times per day on different days and contribute this as a factor of their success.
Instagram:
Peak day Monday.
Photos anytime.
Most Video interaction 9 pm to 8am (videos don’t get watched at work).
Overall photo effectiveness anytime of the day for pics.
This information will give a better than average chance of joining the social conversation as an active participant. And every time you post, think about the potential. Make it a habit to give yourself a friendly poke and review your content. Put yourself on the other side of the conversation. If it’s saying what you want it to say, your post could clinch a deal or create the lead of a lifetime—oh, and don’t forget to check the schedule before you press Send. Good luck!
If you’re interested in learning more about generating traffic, leads, and sales through social media we invite you to download our eBook Alaniz Guide to Generating Website Traffic, Leads & Sales. Please get in touch if there’s anything we can help with!
