By Susan Tucker
Now that you’ve optimized your Facebook, Twitter, 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
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.
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.
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.
Using 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.
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.
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!