This is the one question to rule them all. However, it may not be as clear-cut as you think.
In this article, rather than giving you a single answer that may not apply to your audience, I’m going to teach some of the ‘best’ guestimates, acting as a starting point, plus, teach you how to test and check to find the best times for YOUR audience and fans!
After all, what if your audience is totally different to my audience or someone else’s?
What about time zones? What If you have audiences from Australia, USA and the UK?
As you can see, it’s not as clear-cut as to simply say “post at this time”. Here’s what you need to know and how to optimize your posting schedule.
Is there a General ‘Best Time’ to Post?
Based on a few studies in the past, the best time of day to publish on Facebook may be between 1-4pm, especially on Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
This is based on the time of the day which has the most click through rates and overall audience engagement ratings.
The reason for this could be a range of factors. For example, this time of the day is around lunch time when many people are mindlessly scrolling through Facebook on their lunch break, or, after lunch, when people are killing time before they can head home. Additionally, some people may just be getting home from work, school or finishing college/university for the day.
In addition to immediate exposure, it may also be a great time to post due to the fact that most people will be online that evening, spending more time mindlessly browsing Facebook while watching TV etc.
So you won’t just get views and engagement from people during lunch, this can also carry over to dinner and the later hours of the evening, especially if you generate interaction (shares, likes and comments).
One Time to Rule Them All?
According to more research, the very best time to post is said to be 3pm on a Sunday.
However, as with all research, this will likely change year to year and, as discussed, it may not be the best time for YOUR audience or business.
For Facebook, online users hit a peak on Sunday at around 6-8pm so when posting at a time such as 3pm, the post is out there and has already been interacted with at the time. Remember, it’s always best to check this specifically for YOUR audience, as it’s possible that they may not match the overall Facebook audience profile.
It’s also important to remember Sunday tends to be a low-key rest day for many. Therefore, you may get the best interaction, engagement and purchases as people have more time and can probably read your post, sales page or blog article in full, without normal distractions.
If you are running a 1 day special campaign, especially one which takes some reading or is best viewed on a desktop/laptop, Sunday may just be the best day for it.
Worst Time of The Day to Post to Facebook:
Although there’s no real ‘worst time’, there may be days or times that will provide the least engagement or sales.
That being said, it is suggested that Monday through to Wednesday before 8am and after 8pm provide the least interaction or hits. Building upon this, posts before 8am or after 8pm on any day are probably not optimal, especially if most of your audience is mainly based within one time zone.
This is for obvious reasons, i.e. most people are sleeping or just waking up. While the morning can be a good time for quick posts, that just require a like, you won’t catch many people making a purchase or reading a 2000 word blog post when they are also getting ready for work or organizing a household.
How to Monitor Your Audience’s Activity and Decide Your Best Time of Day to Post
It’s very easy to check when your audience is online and on which days they are most active.
Head over to your Facebook page or business manager. From here, click INSIGHTS.
Once you have clicked that, you will see the option to select “When Your Fans Are Online”
It will then display 2 graphs like this:
As you can see here, my audience activity throughout a 24 hour period is fairly stable, which is quite rare. However, I have an international following, with plenty of followers from Australia, New Zealand, USA and Europe. For this reason, it’s fairly stable throughout the day.
However, if you are a smaller business or have most of your followers in one area, time zone or country then you will see large changes in activity, as discussed above.
Above the main graph, you will see some bar charts above. This shows the daily activity for Mon – Sun. As you can see for my audience, once again it is fairly stable; however, again it may change for each fan page and business.
What posts are best for overall engagement anyway?
Regardless of the time, the posts that provide the greatest engagement on Facebook, are images.
The world is slowly becoming more and more visually-based; just take a look at IG, a multi-million dollar platform built upon images.
As the saying goes, an image paints a thousand words …
The potential of images on Facebook is enormous, they’re shared and engaged with almost 5x more than text-based posts.
If you want to learn more about Facebook Marketing and see the techniques I’ve used to 10x my own business revenue and helped some other big names / brands within the fitness world, you can learn more below.
Take Home Message
As I mentioned at the start, there is actually NO universal best time, but there are times, of course, which will benefit your posts as I’ve explained.
Your best option is to do your own research on your Facebook audience as discussed above.
Importantly, know the location of your fans, their time zone etc.
Read Next: INSERT ARTICLE / SALES PAGE
Add Comment