Dustin Stout

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The Best and Worst Times to Post On Social Media

best times to post on social media

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may have already seen my post on Scheduling Your Tweets for the Highest Possible Impact. Timing is crucial to spreading your message to the widest possible audience.

This infographic shows when the best times are to post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest.

A Brief Word on Timing

It’s important to note that these sorts of analysis’ are usually based on a very large dataset. They analyze hundreds, maybe even hundreds of thousands of pieces of data to come up with the average.

So when you read the following infographic, just know that your audience may be different. For instance, if you’re trying to reach stay-at-home moms in the U.S., these numbers may work just fine. But if you’re going after the business professional CEO type, some times may not work as well since they are likely to be busy during work hours.

Also, this infographic doesn’t make reference to a particular time zone, but I would assume it to be in Eastern Standard Time.

Know your audience. Try these peak times out and see if they work. Then try adjusting slightly to see what difference it makes. You might also just observe when key influencers in your target audience post the most and try sending out your messages around those times.

All that said, here’s what this particular study found on the Best and Worst Times to Post on Social Media via SocialCaffeine.com:

Best and Worst Times to Post on Social Media

And here it is written out in case you can’t see the infographic above:

Facebook:

  • Best 1pm-4pm
  • Worst 8pm-8am

Twitter:

  • Best 1pm-3pm
  • Worst 8pm-9am

LinkedIn:

  • Best 7am-9am or 5pm-6pm
  • Worst 10pm-6am

Google+:

  • Best 9am-11am
  • Worst 6pm-8am

Pinterest:

  • Best 2pm-4pm or 8pm-1am
  • Worst 5pm-7pm

Two Tools for You

If you’d like to really get a good idea of your particular audience, SocialBro [affiliate link] is one of the services out there that will analyze your audience (specifically on Twitter) and tell you when the best times to tweet would be for your particular audience. They have a paid service, but you can also download their free Chrome extension here.

There is also a great web app that will analyze your Google+ data called Timing+. All you have to do is sign in with your Google account and it will tell you the ideal times for you to post based on your previous public activity.

Give both of those a try, and let me know what your results are!

What surprised you about the Best and Worst times to post? Is there anything that you find particularly strange?

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About the author

Dustin W. Stout
A social media blogger and speaker who loves helping people tell bigger, better stories online. Founder of SoVisual.co, and an unashamed coffee addict.

28 responses to “The Best and Worst Times to Post On Social Media”

  1. sar Avatar
    sar

    Soo…. what about Instagram? Best times then?

  2. Nikki Basi Avatar
    Nikki Basi

    Yes I think so!

  3. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    You know, I was just thinking about that for Bob today! Maybe him and I need to have a mastermind session!

  4. Nikki Basi Avatar
    Nikki Basi

    Hey great post! It’s good for me to know as I’m starting out on my platform! I also passed on to my husband who is currently job searching, so the Google+ and LinkedIn stats should help him out there! Thanks!

  5. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Thanks for commenting Ben! I actually talked about Crowdbooster in an older post titled Sheduling Your Tweets for the Highest Possible Impact. That was back when Crowdbooster was still free though. It was my favorite until they went to a paid-only model.

  6. Benjamin Bolland Avatar
    Benjamin Bolland

    Nice Info graphic! 🙂
    Besides Hootsuite and Buffer I found Crowdbooster a also very useful tool. It lets you schedule facebook (page + personal) posts and tweets, shows you the impact (ppl reached) and makes recommendations about what time you should send your content.
    I havent used it for a while, so not sure how they advanced to other networks such as G+, Linkedin, ….

    Cheers
    Ben

  7. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Awesome Marcus! Let me know if I can give you any more ideas!

  8. Marcus A. Cylar Avatar
    Marcus A. Cylar

    Thanks, Dustin, you should see it now. I’m getting ready to rebrand and reintroduce myself to the blogosphere, so I’ll definitely be changing this again soon. You’ve given a lot of ideas I will certainly be implementing. Thanks again!

  9. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Thanks Marcus! I appreciate the compliments, and your thoughts!

    BTW, have you considered getting a Gravatar so that your picture shows up in comments?

  10. Marcus A. Cylar Avatar
    Marcus A. Cylar

    I couldn’t agree more about the importance of at least paying attention to optimal posting times, if not completely heeding them, regardless of how important content is. Anything you can do to put your content in front of more people has to be helpful, right?

    As far as this article, I’ve seen some of this data before, but I found this offering to be a tad more thorough. Thanks for sharing!

  11. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    There is something to be said though about timing, wouldn’t you agree? The more people who see your post socially, the more likely they are to share it. They more it’s shared, the higher your site ranks in Google. The higher it ranks, the more organic traffic. But it all starts with getting it seen.

    I mean, it’s fine if you don’t have time to worry about the timing– but it would be unreasonable to discount the value of a well timed social media message.

  12. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Fair enough!

  13. Brian Meagher Avatar
    Brian Meagher

    @Jeremy – I’m with you. Unless you must have the most visits immediately to make 2¢ per eyeball, whatever works best for the blogger, and when they feel like posting, will do for me.

  14. Brian Meagher Avatar
    Brian Meagher

    I did use Hootsuite for a while, and think it’s a great tool, and I have played with Buffer, but I found it annoying, constantly asking me to “top off” my Buffer.

    For the 2 or 3 posts I publish each week, just going with when I feel like posting is OK with me. I don’t want to over-think the whole process.

    Content is content. I’m not out here making a living off of eyeballs, so, as I said, Google search will send visits my way.

  15. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    I think it looks different for everyone. It really depends on the audience you’re shooting for. Have you tried any of the tools I mentioned?

  16. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    Thanks for sharing this Dustin.

    I think it is interesting that FB best time is 1 – 4 pm…. when people are suppose to be at work! Perhaps a little pick me up in the afternoon and mid week! I usually have my blog post set for Thursday morning, but I might try and switch it to Wed at around 1 for both FB and Twitter and see what happens.

    The best and worst times for Pinterest totally make sense to me!

    I found it interesting that Google+ peak time is during work hours!

    Do you think this might look different for Canadians?

  17. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    … lol and you came to the times how?

  18. Jeremy Smith Avatar
    Jeremy Smith

    I have my tweets scheduled at 9AM, 12:45PM, 1:30PM, and 3PM MST

  19. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    True Jeremy! The big idea is that it’s a starting point to explore. What do you use to find the optimal times?

  20. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    I have used Tweriod, and was a little confused by the UI so I didn’t stay long. Has it worked for you though Tim?

  21. Jeremy Smith Avatar
    Jeremy Smith

    I’m in the same boat as many of the others. I have best times for engagement, but I also hve personal best times on when I actually want to post too. I do not think this is a “action ruled by facts” but more of a hybrid of personal desire of when to post, common sense, all impacted by these research results.

  22. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Interesting post Dustin, thanks for sharing. I do think this provides a starting point or a point of reference, but I know for Twitter that times can vary for folks. Not sure you’ve discovered Tweriod yet, but give it a try (http://www.tweriod.com/). I used it to inform my schedules in Buffer. Anyways, it is interesting to get a sense for traffic patterns.

  23. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    You’re very welcome Troy! Thanks for reading!

  24. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Very interesting Brandon! You’re on the East Coast right? How did you find that to be your peak time?

  25. Dustin W. Stout Avatar
    Dustin W. Stout

    Do you use any social media scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite?

  26. Troy Mclaughlin Avatar
    Troy Mclaughlin

    Great post Dustin. Thank you for sharing great information.

  27. Brandon Gilliland Avatar
    Brandon Gilliland

    I agree with most of the graphic; however, I’ve found that my highest traffic times on twitter are between 8pm and 11pm.

  28. Brian Meagher Avatar
    Brian Meagher

    While I’m a fan of data analysis, especially regarding posting times – as sure as we post on different days and times, the data reflects the same.

    If I were to follow the “best practices” suggested by the different analyses, I’d be all over the map too. Pinterest on Saturday, G+ on Tuesday, etc. Where do you draw the line?

    I find comfort in the fact that Google searches will send readers my way, so to heck with when I post. (Although, truthfully, I do consider the time of day… sometimes). Only to a point – I’m East Coast, and I try to consider best times regarding East Coast vs. West Coast, USA. Yea, I’m an isolationist. 🙂

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