Best Time to Post on Social Media for great engagement

Today, the world is literally at our fingertips, thanks to the tremendous digital evolution. Being in touch with people 24×7 across the globe is now a reality.

As per our social media experts, there are specific times (best time to post on social media) that have shown better performance on the respective platforms.

Amongst other channels, Social Media has played an important role in keeping us connected effortlessly. Apart from helping peer to peer connections, it has also helped Brands stay connected with their patrons and followers all day.

With algorithms evolving and social media marketing getting more strategic, social media experts are doing a more in-depth research and analysis that will give more effective results for the social media marketing efforts. With social media evolving with every passing day, let’s see what the current user’s behaviour has to say (source: SproutSocial):

Best time to post on Social Media – Facebook

Facebook currently has over two billion active users, making it the most populated platform by far. This massive pool of audience means a huge opportunity to reach your desired audience as effectively as possible. While paid channels are available, organic is still a go-to channel for a large population of small and mid-sized brands and new-entrants. This is why it is important to keep Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm in mind before making the post schedule.

In addition to this, your content strategy that connects meaningfully to your target audience is extremely essential. You’ll best meet this need for engagement by posting at the right time when users are most active on Facebook. Here are the key data points to be noted:

• Best times to post on Facebook: 11:00 AM IST and I:00 PM IST
• Best Day: Wednesday (mid-week)
• Most consistent engagement: Weekdays from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM IST
• Worst day: Surprisingly, it is a Sunday. It is observed to have the least amount of engagement
• Lowest Engagement: Early mornings and evenings before 7:00 AM and after 5:00 PM

What we learned:

While people are often on their phones, frequently checking and refreshing their Facebook timelines during the middle of the day, lunchtime is the peak time to gain public attention. On the other hand, late night and early evening along with weekends bring relatively low engagement.

Best time to post on Social Media – Instagram

Instagram has now become a platform where you can find every kind of information – be it brands, news, or entertainment. With over a billion users, it is amongst the leaders in Social Media. The network has debuted new features recently like Instagram shop, IGTV, creative AR filters for the stories, and much more. Having multiple options to communicate, Instagram offers you an umbrella of choices to connect with your audience.

Similar to Facebook, Instagram’s algorithms are constantly evolving to improve the newsfeed experience of users.

The key stats for the best times for brands to post on Instagram are:

• Best times to post: Wednesday at 11:00 AM IST and Friday at 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM IST
• Best Day: Overall, Wednesday is considered to be the ideal day
• Most consistent engagement: Tuesday to Friday – 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM IST
• Worst Day: Again, a Sunday
• Lowest engagement: Late night and early morning from 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM

What we learned:

While Instagram engagement works at its peak mid-day and mid-week, there are a few opportune windows found in the evening and morning too. While we would still suggest considering posting during the core weekdays, it could be well worth it for brands whose audience are among the ‘Gram first thing in the morning or last thing before sleeping!”

Best time to post on Social Media – LinkedIn

With LinkedIn, the strategy works a little different as compared to the other two platforms. Also, not to forget, the platform is extremely audience-specific. They have a curated and targeted corporate-minded audience that is more inclined towards the company growth, strategies used, and HR policies used to keep the employees content. To sum it up, it is more ideal for a professional networking.

Here are our findings of the best times to post on LinkedIn:

• The best times to post: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM IST and 12:00 Noon IST
• Best day: Wednesday
• Most consistent engagement: Tuesday to Friday from 8:00 AM t0 2:00 PM
• Lowest engagement: Sundays and every day from 9:00 PM to 3:00 AM

What we learned:

Considering LinkedIn’s more bending towards the leaders of today and tomorrow ad job seekers, it is no surprise that weekdays would be an ideal choice to reach out to your target audience. Activities ramp up Tuesday onwards as Monday rush hits everyone.

Weekends garner low engagement which is pretty understandable as people are expected to stay away from their desks and platforms that are only work-oriented.

Your social media strategy has to be specific to you

While these times could be an indicator on when to put up that key post, important vlog, celebrity interview, product launch posts etc., this does not mean that this is a rule that you have to follow. If you’re building content at scale and putting up multiple posts (6-7) each day, you might start gathering data for engagement from your own insights that could be different from what is shared above. You have to adapt your content strategy as per your audience.

Having said that, we hope this article will help you experiment with new scheduling times for your content. If you’re trying it out, let us know the results you achieve through this on our Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.

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