Are there truly best times to post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, or to send your special broadcast marketing emails?
The answer, “It depends” doesn’t help too much in itself, but in providing general observations we must be careful in assessing when reach and engagement is most likely to be effective.
Consider, for example, this reference about LinkedIn in The Best Times to Post to the Top 8 Social Platforms:
LinkedIn is most used during business hours.
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the afternoon (noon to 5 p.m.) will result in more engagement.
That general statement belies two important conditions, in my opinion. ?First, does your industry/community reflect the general business world, or are behaviours different for your sector? ?Secondly, and more importantly, do the number of immediate opens necessarily reflect the amount of interest, engagement, or conversions.
For example, the late Walt Hailey?advocated coordinating marketing communications if possible in the morning rather than the afternoon, with the sweet spot being between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. ?Even he however warned that this time frame didn’t make much sense if you were trying to serve certain types of businesses.
As well, you should consider that “off hours” there may be more time and determined interest in your communications than at the standard best time.
And, finally, ideally you’ll do some analytics and testing of your own list/data to make the optimal decisions.
Nevertheless it doesn’t hurt to use industry/media standards as a starting point. So if you are using LinkedIn, time your messages for midweek afternoons.
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