It’s an age-old question that we certainly get asked often! And rightly so, you spend a lot of time creating content and you want it to be engaged with and seen by as many of your audience as possible. The last thing you want to do is post it at a time when your audience is least active on social media.
Before we delve into the best time to post on social media, let’s first consider why it is important to post at the right time. Writing enticing copy and creating scroll-stopping graphics should only be part of your strategy. The other part should consider the best time to publish this content. Your aim is to get your audience to engage with your content, which can include anything from liking the post, commenting on it, tagging their friends, sharing it with others or clicking on the call to action. The more engagement your content receives, the better chance it has to reach more of your audience and in turn show up on the feeds of your audiences’ friends, leading to more eyes on your content! This is why it is so important to consider the best time to publish your posts. There is no point in publishing great content at a time when your audience is not on social media, this will result in fewer people seeing your post and even less interactions.
Although posting great content at the best time is a recipe for success and would be the perfect-scenario, the answer to ‘What is the best time to post on social media? is not so simple. It depends on several factors, including:
- Which social channel you’re posting on
- The industry in which your brand operates
- Your audience
- The location you are targeting
With this in mind, several studies have been done and pages of data analysed by social media management platforms as well as big social media data agencies, which have been able to provide an overall picture of when it’s best to post on social media in Australia. Here’s a quick summary of their findings:
Best time to post on Facebook
Posting during the working week, between Monday and Friday is generally found to be better than posting over the weekend, particularly on Sunday. Along with this, daytime is generally found to be the best time to post during the week. With some recommending the best time to post is around 1pm. It is believed that this is when the majority of the audience is on their work break and are catching up on what they’ve missed on their socials.
Generally, the weekend sees usage and engagement drop off significantly compared to during the working week.
Best time to post on Instagram
The best time to post on Instagram is similar to that of Facebook. Again during the working week is best, however there is a difference in the optimal time to post. For Instagram, posting late morning, usually between 10am and 11am was found to be most effective.
After work, in the evening, was also found to be a good time to post on Instagram, as users often scrolled through their feeds during their evening wind-down time.
Best time to post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is primarily used for professional networking and career development, so it’s users tend to be most active on weekdays, during standard work hours. Between 9am and 12pm has been found to be a particularly optimal time to post. However, some have found posting an hour or so before work and an hour or so after work also provides great results.
Posting on weekends is generally avoided for LinkedIn.
Best time to post on Twitter
As the go-to platform for all the latest news, Twitter moves fast! However, between mid-morning and early afternoon, during the week were found to be the optimal times to tweet. Some results have also indicated that Sunday during the late evening, is also a good time to tweet in Australia.
Best time to post on TikTok
Compared to platforms which have been in use for a longer period of time, there is still relatively little data for the best time to post on TikTok. However, early analysis shows that users are active on TikTok throughout the working week as well as the weekend. With the audience being most active during the early to mid-morning, then again around lunchtime and finally from mid to late evening.
Remember, this is a general guideline, to determine the best time to post for your brand, we highly recommend that you analyse your own data using insights about your audience directly from social media platforms or third party social media management platform providers.
Need help making great content and posting it at the best time? Contact us today!
