If engaged in a business using Social Media to help market your business, products or services its important to know the best times to make posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media sites. The best times would be the times when most people are likely to see your posts. Other marketers break it down to declare that the best times are the times when most Interactions take place. Interactions (On Facebook, for instance) would be Likes, Comments or Shares. It’s good to have interactions with your Friends, Likes, Followers, Fans, Subscribers, etc. But a lot of them are Social Media voyeurs. They choose not to interact, or don’t know how to do so.
We own and operate Total Broadcasting Service; which is an audio and video production company that provides content for Social Media Marketing. In studying the Facebook and YouTube channels we manage we’ve determined the following:
Worst Days of the Week to Post on Facebook-
It’s not even close. Monday and Tuesday have the least number of fans and followers on Facebook, with Monday slightly worst. Interestingly, Tuesdays are not so bad on YouTube.
In rating the worst day for Monday proved worst for 50% of our customers business profile pages. Tuesday was worst for 46% of them. And in nearly every case if Monday was their worst day Tuesday was second worst, and vice versa.
Sunday was the third worst day.
Best Days of the Week to Post on Facebook-
This was not nearly as definitive as determining the worst days. But Wednesday appeared best for more customers than any other day. 32% of Total Broadcasting customers were best on Wednesday. Friday was also good with a percentage of 25%. Thursday and Saturdays were the strongest days for 14% of our customers.
In advising our clients we will be telling them to keep an eye on their Facebook Insights data for changing information, but for now plan your best and most important posts for Wednesday first, and Thursday thru Saturday in equal emphasis.
Worst Time of any Day to Post on Facebook-
We would not have needed data to guess this information correctly. You probably wouldn’t either. In each customer’s case the fewest number of online Friends occurred in the middle of the night from 9pm-6am Pacific. Not hard to figure out why.
Yet, strangely a lot of national brands have not caught on to this fact and have programmed their auto-posts to appear on your Walls early in the A-M hours. Presumably their hoping to greet you when you wake with their ads. We would not advise our clients to do likewise.
Best Time of Day to Post on Facebook-
There are two ways to look at answering this. Either one could work for you.
First, post in the morning between 7am-9am. While this is the time frame in which fewest people are on-line (other than over-night) the benefit is that your post will be on the Walls of your fans all throughout the day. So, therefore, even evening Facebook surfers will scroll through their Wall and eventually come across your post.
Still, we recommend posting onto Facebook when the most people are on-line. Among our clients the late afternoon between 2pm-6pm and 6pm-9pm are equally busy online. As such posting at any time from 2pm-6pm would be best. Late afternoon versus early evening using the same argument by those proponents of early morning posting.
All Total Broadcasting Service customers surveyed operate businesses on the West Coast of the United States in the Pacific time zone. Data used to formulate this information comes from Facebook Insights during a recent 1-week period in July 2013.
The Best Days and Times to Post on Social Media According to National Data-
Look hard enough and you’ll find conflicting data online. We came across blogs referencing studies that said Wednesday was the absolute worst day to post. We found more studies and ones we found more credible stating that Wednesday was best.
The chart below gives very specific recommendations for all the major Social Media sites. Click on it to see a larger clearer version.
What you’ll find it says is not too dissimilar from our findings in studying Total Broadcasting Service customers. It says:
Best time to post on Facebook? Wednesday at 3pm.
Worst time? Overnights and weekends.
Best time to Tweet on Twitter? Monday-Thursday 1pm-3pm.
Worst Tweet times? After 3pm Fridays.
Best time to post on LinkedIn? Just before or just after normal work hours; 7am-9am or 5-6pm.
Worst? Mondays and Fridays.
Best time to Pin on Pinterest? Interestingly, Saturday mornings and evenings from 8pm-1am.
Worst time for Pinterest? Late afternoons 5pm-7pm.
The chart also mentions Google+, and while I know they have a significant membership it’s not unlike a forced Labor Camp. You are only on Google+ because Google makes you have an account when you want an account on YouTube or Gmail. There is still no one playing on Google+. So who cares.
How Much Should You Post?
On Twitter there is virtually no penalty for over posting. Have at it. Tweet yourself to death.
But on Facebook there are definite penalties for posting too often. Your Fans will stop being your fans. They’ll stop paying attention, they may unlike you. They may just Hide you.
Various data sites calculate that 2-posts per day is optimum. Once you post 3 times or more the amount of interactions in the form of Likes, Comments, and Shares starts to drop off.
Use this information to your benefit and you will find Social Media terrific for staying in touch with customers and finding new ones, or more specifically, making it possible for them to find you. Above all, as we like to say with regard to our posting live by this rule…ALWAYS BE INTERESTING! Boring sucks.
Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.
Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100
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M Schuett blah blah blah 
Be Yourself on Social Media.
I joined Facebook with my personal profile page in May 2008, and some would say at that point a monster was made. The truth isn’t quite so dramatic and was in fact a slow evolving process. Now I’m very active on Social Media and a lot of it is for fun, but most of it is a calculated effort to promote my company Total Broadcasting Service, and recently my wife and my Advisor status with the direct sales company, AdvoCare.
The truth is the “monster” reference above refers to both my frequency of posts and my willingness to break some long-standing “rules” for business and networking. The big one of which I refer is “never talk religion or politics”. It’s long been believed crossing the line into those two subjects is a sure way to lose customers or potential customers. Well, I’m a happy example of how that “rule” is largely myth. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the politics and religion banishment from social media discussion or business and networking discussion is created mostly by people who are personally more reserved anyway.
Nothing is wrong with being more tightly guarded about your thoughts, actions, or beliefs. But those who are ought not unfairly judge those of us who are happily more vocal. After all, if everyone held ideas so closely to the vest and never shared them how would people learn and grow and solve problems. It’s the more boisterous in society who call attention to problems and those problem’s solutions.
Total Broadcasting Service is an eight year old company. We’re a radio advertising brokerage and audio production company that has added video production for internet marketing to our list of services. We experienced four years of growth after beginning operations in 2005, and then fell on hard times like so many others in 2009. We saw a lot of customers close their doors that year. Since then every year has gotten progressively better. And in 2012 we have recorded our best year ever in terms of gross income.
What I find interesting about this is the fact that 2012 was an election year and I made no secret about my support for what the election determined was a minority opinion. Not only was it a minority opinion nationally, but my Conservative politics was and remains an extreme minority opinion where I live and where most of my business originates from, in King County, Washington. So how can it be possible that my business has continued to grow and support my family with what amounts to an above-average income and life-style?
Stephen Colbert
As Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert demanded to know during the Chick-fil-A vs Gay Marriage controversy last Summer, “I’ve got to know what positions my food has taken on all the issues. For example, I love Carl Jr’s Western Burger. It must be anti-ObamaCare, because it is clearly trying to kill us. And whenever I go to Applebee’s, I insist that they only give me right wings. After all, you are what you eat. And now, you also believe what you eat.”
The absurdity of Colbert’s comment should be obvious. And to me the obvious conclusion I’ve come to is that most people don’t care about politics or religion. Traditionally poor voter turnout proves this fact. Studies showing only about 50% of Americans regularly attend church further proves it.
Like Adam Smith clearly enunciated in his seminal book, “The Wealth of Nations“,
Adam Smith
everyone cares about their own selfish interests. And that’s a good thing. Because in caring for our own selfish interests we as individuals and individual businesses are stronger and better able to serve specific customers and the general populace. Weak people and weak businesses serve very few. And in caring for their own selfish interests people care little about my politics or religion. They care about whether my business can make their lives better, something we constantly strive to do. And we strive with equal fervor for our Liberal customers as for our Conservative customers; for our Christian customers as for our Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, or Muslim customers. Doing so is in our best interest.
My efforts on Social Media now include regular posts to my Facebook personal page, business page, and personality page. In 2010 I added Twitter and LinkedIn personally and for business to my Social Media promotional efforts. And in 2012 Pinterest began receiving our attention. And we are bloggers here on M Schuett blah blah blah. (We’re also on Biznik. But since they started charge money for even their most basic profile page we discontinued our subscription). Selfish advocacy of my political and moral points of view are frequent subjects of my posts. But foremost at ALL TIMES is merely to be interesting to as many people as possible in order to promote my business interests; Total Broadcasting Service, and in the past 3-4 months, AdvoCare health and nutrition.
AdvoCare allowed me and my wife to lose 30 lbs each in just 4 months.
Social Media experts will tell you that marketing through social media is not intended to get you direct business; but instead to keep your brand, product or service in the front-of-mind for potential customers. That’s true. But when you make yourself interesting on Social Media and are not afraid to “show a little leg” and make yourself vulnerable you gain credibility with even those who disagree with you. And in gaining credibility you gain direct customers. As we have. And we’re grateful.
Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.
December 11, 2012
Categories: Business, National Politics, Washington State . Tags: advertising, Advocare, blogging, Business, Carl Jr, Comedy Central, commentary, Conservatism, current-events, facebook, internet advertising, LinkedIn, marketing, networking, Pinterest, politics, religion and politics, social media, society, twitter, Wealth of Nations . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Be Yourself on Social Media.