A Quick Guide to Understanding the Best Times To Post and Engage On Social Media

By Susan Tucker

best times to postNow that you’ve optimized your FacebookTwitter, LinkedIn, and pages, it’s time to look at how we can get the most “bang” for our social buck (so to speak) by identifying the best times to post and engage online.  Keep in mind that this is a general guide; by tracking your analytics you can use that information to really hone in on what’s working best for your audience.

Here are the Best Times to Post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

Facebook

Generally speaking the best days to post on Facebook are on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – with a spike in engagement on Thursdays specifically. And, links sent between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. tend to get the most traction.

There have been some new findings showing that weekends are gaining momentum with engagement and B2C companies are showing a 32% increase in engagement on Saturdays.

Twitter

Most Twitter users are mobile and tend to engage with Twitter throughout the day, every day – yet a recent study shows that Twitter engagement is higher during commuting times, and on the weekends. It is recommended to forget about posting after 3:00 pm on Friday.

LinkedIn

If LinkedIn is your primary network you’ll want to post midweek from Tuesday to Thursday. On Mondays most professionals are getting into the workweek and less likely to see your posts. Fridays will also get you less traction as many professionals are wrapping up the week and leaving early for the weekend. Interestingly, however, Saturday and Sundays on LinkedIn also have a spike in engagement as folks use this time to catch up on their social networking sites.

How to Read Your Analytics

Since we’ve covered general guidelines on the best time to post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, let’s move into how you can figure out the best time to post for your audience by reading the analytics.

There are a couple of ways to do this.


googleUsing Google Analytics

Google Analytics are constantly improving. I love this relatively new feature of being able to determine acquisition by channel type.

When logged in, navigate to Acquisition > Social > Overview to see which channels are netting you the most traffic. From there you can click a network to view which URL’s were visited and which days had the most traffic. Take it one step farther by going to Visitors Flow; this tool allows you to track trends from your site visitors.

Using Native Analytics

Twitter does not currently offer in-house analytics tools but offer a list of Certified Partners. However, Facebook and LinkedIn Company Pages both offer a suite of tools allowing financial professionals to track engagement.

You can access Facebook Analytics by visiting your Brand Fan Page, and clicking on See Insights. From there you can view Page Likes, Post Reach and Engagement. The Posts tab will show you which day of the week your Fans are online.

I can tell here that Thursdays are the best day for me to post to get the highest engagement.
I can tell here that Thursdays are the best day for me to post to get the highest engagement.

Access LinkedIn Company Page Analytics by going to your Company Page, then clicking on the Analytics tab. You can view Audience, Impressions, Clicks, Interactions or more.

LinkedIn has a nice native analytics feature. Helps you to track engagement on your company page.
LinkedIn has a nice native analytics feature. Helps you to track engagement on your company page.

Posting and tracking for your small business may vary from the general public. I always recommend owners test out different times, days of the week, types of posts to see what your audience seems to engage with. But, most of all… have fun!

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