What are the best times to schedule social media posts for?
Why we should reconsider “best time to post on social media” studies
The idea of the “ideal time to publish on social media” is still very much alive and well.
Even with social media algorithms, it’s critical to obtain engagement within the first few hours of publishing so that the algorithms can expose your messages to a larger portion of your target audience. And knowing when to post for your brand can assist with that.
However, I believe it is past time to change our attention away from research on the optimal time to publish on social media. While the studies are well-intentioned, many (including ours) have significant flaws.
How to Determine the Most Appropriate Time to Post on Social Media
Personalization is becoming more prevalent on social media. Social media is transitioning from a broadcasting channel to a one-to-one and one-to-few interaction route.
To provide your brand’s fans with a tailored experience, you should publish based on their social media usage habits. When done correctly, they have a better chance of seeing and connecting with your social media postings – increased reach and engagement!
Here’s how to figure out when it’s ideal for you to post on social media:-
1. When creating a new social media profile, start with educated predictions.
The strategy we’ll take here is determined by your past posts. Even if this is your first position as a social media manager, the business will most likely have some data for you to work with if they have previously posted.
Don’t be concerned if you’re starting a new social media presence. You can begin with a few educated estimates. Consider when your target audience is likely to be online and engaged with your social media postings. (Alternatively, some of the better research may be beneficial.)
2. Create a posting schedule.
Once you’ve made a few educated estimates, it’s time to put them to the test!
You should publish at such times several times to effectively test your assumptions. You may simply experiment with the timings over a few weeks using Publish’s own publishing schedule (or more).
3. Plan postings for several weeks in advance.
You could arrange a few weeks’ worths of social media postings all at once, or you could do it regularly. It’s entirely up to you!
This is not a scientific method, but three to four weeks of publishing should provide you with enough data to work with and determine your best timings.
To schedule your social media posts using Publish, go to your dashboard and click the composer (“What do you want to share?”). Select the social media accounts you wish to share in the composer and add your text, link, or multimedia. When you click “Add to Queue,” your post will be added to the next available slot in your publishing schedule (or “Buffer queue”).
4. Research your analytics
You may begin analyzing your outcomes once you have a few weeks worth of data.
Select your desired social media account in your Analyze dashboard and click “Posts.”
Sort your posts by your target statistic, such as likes, impressions, or engagement rate, to determine the optimum times to publish on your social network account. Then check to see when the top posts were published or if any times continue to appear for your top posts. Make a note of the times. These are your current best posting times.
5. Experiment more
You should have a decent understanding of the good and terrible periods by now.
Return to your Publish dashboard and alter your publication schedule. Keep the good posting times, discard the poor ones, and try with a couple more.
How many posting times should you maintain and how many should you discard? It all depends. And this isn’t really scientific: for example, you may preserve half of the posting times while changing the other half. After a few rounds of testing and determining your best times to publish, you may stick to an 80/20 ratio — 80 percent tested times / 20 percent experimental times.