Prime Time

For social media, you can create beautiful graphics, engaging captions, and have a great social presence on all platforms. It’s easy to agree that these are all important and needed for audience engagement, but none of those will matter without thinking about one vital question: when should you post all of it?

Timing when you share, post, or tweet is crucial to your audience engagement. The prettiest, most creative posts will be missed by important eyes if they are not posted at the times those eyes are looking. So, when is that “prime time” for posting? The truth is, depending on your platform and your specific audience, that time can be different for everyone. Testing and tracking the results for your own audience is just as important in these cases, but we can help you learn where to start.

For Facebook, the most visited social media platform of the bunch, the best time is lunchtime around 12PM. Prime days for this time would be the beginning of the week!

For Twitter, each tweet has a very short lifespan. This means timing is even more important. It’s good to remember that 80 percent of Twitter users are millennials. Even though the age of the audience is younger, the time to post is still very similar, between 12 PM and 1 PM.

Finally, Instagram seems to vary depending on what/who you are posting. We can see some food organizations getting the most engagement during the hours or 12PM – 1PM.  While some educational accounts did the best between 4PM-5PM. Instagram does have an algorithm that shows users what they are most likely to engage with first. To help with this, keep your posts and shares within the timeframe your audience is most likely to be online.

While any social media coordinator for any business should remember these metrics, other questions are just as important to answer when it comes to “prime time” for posting. Hold old is your audience? What networks do they use? Where do they live? Answer these questions for your audience specifically and then test, test, test! Test your own content for your own audience and put into practice what works best!

Your perfect “prime time” for posting is up to you to find. Use these baselines, test your content performance, and listen to your audience.