Andrew Hutchinson
Source: www.socialmediatoday.com, May 2024
Okay, first, a point of clarification: There are no universal best times to post on social media for every single brand and every business.
Each brand’s audience is different, their behaviors and interests are not the same, and as such, there’s no one-size-fits-all, prescriptive approach that’ll ensure that you get the best results every time that you post.
That said, “best times to post” guides can be helpful, in both highlighting broader trends in engagement, and prompting you to think about when you might want to start your experiments, in order to find your ideal posting cadence.
You might be posting at 4pm, when 7am would be better, and reports like this can get you thinking about why that might be, what your audience is seeking, and how your approach could be cut to fit.
So, yes, I know, before you reply and comment, that these reports are not 100% correct. I know, and Sprout Social knows too, but there are still benefits to this data, which could help in your planning.
Sprout’s latest best times to post overview looks at the times where each social app is seeing the most engagement, based on overall trends.
Here’s a look at the latest data, as it relates to the top social apps, starting with Facebook.
According to Sprout’s data, the best times to post on Facebook are weekdays between 9am and midday, while Sundays are the worst days to post.
As you can see in the above chart, weekday mornings see more activity, with the 5pm to 6pm period, when people are making their way home, seeing another surge.
That’s pretty much the same as what Sprout Social found last year for FB, and while it may seem counterintuitive to be posting early in the workday, that, seemingly, is when more people are logging on and interacting.
Also worth noting Sprout’s specific description of its methodology here:
“We worked closely with Sprout’s Data Science team to review findings and trends in social media usage over the past year from Sprout Social’s more than 34,000 customers and understand when their content was most and least frequently engaged with, broken out by platform and industry.”
So it’s based on engagement with posts that came via Sprout Social, not on posting times.
On Instagram, Sprout says that weekdays between 9am and 2pm are best, with less engagement on Friday and weekends.
For LinkedIn, meanwhile, company pages see the most engagement on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10am and 12pm.
Pinterest is also included, with the best time to Pin being Tuesdays to Fridays at 1am.
Yes, 1am. Why so early?
According to Sprout:
“It may be a combination of when users are struck with inspiration and the Pinterest algorithm that affects engagement times.”
In other words, it’s not really clear, but more engagement appears to be happening in the early hours in the app.
Posting on TikTok works best in the afternoon, from 2pm to 6pm on weekdays.
As you can see, there are also strong engagement trends between 9am and 11am on Wednesday and Thursday, with other days seeing less engagement.
Finally, on X, weekdays between 9am and 3pm are best.
Again, these are just guides, and while they are based on actual engagement rates, individual results will vary. You can use overviews like this to help in your experiments, as you look for the best times to post for your business and audience, and they may help to get you thinking about your strategy, and what could be worth trying out.
You can read Sprout Social’s full best times to post report here.
