Is There A Best Time To Post On Social Media? Science Says So

If you are a user of social media (and, well, you probably are), you might have wondered when the best time to post something is, and get the most engagement possible with it.

According to a scientific research published by the Journal of Consumer Research, time really matters when it comes to the type of content you post. To start, it’s true that the first hour of your post is when you get around 50% of the engagement—so you better work to catch people’s attention as soon as possible.

The research took place only on Twitter, but the outcomes might give you good hints for application in other channels like email or Instagram.

The research explains that content on social media can be sorted in two different ways:

• “Virtue”: more educational content, such as financial reports, marketing trends, business insights, and so on.
• “Vice”: content related to entertainment, like memes, sports, travel, celebrities.

And, according to data, Virtue content is more likely to get higher engagement in the morning, while in the evening Vice content will bring better results.

The same happens on the weekends, when most people are more disconnected from work.

Why does it happen?

Our concentration decreases as we get tired. So it will be easier to read, understand and be more attracted to topics that are more complex in the morning. 

At the same time, these topics might help us somehow during the day, like a report, or an article about finance or marketing.

By the end of the day, when we have already done a bunch of stuff, our concentration is not the same as it was in the early morning. We are tired and willing to get gratification, (that’s why a happy hour always seems to be a good idea) which makes us act more impulsively. 

This helps us understand why Vice content can get better results at the end of the day rather than dense Virtue content.

How to apply this on a daily basis with your social media strategy?

First of all, knowing who you are producing for is a must on every content marketing strategy. It is very important to understand your audience. So, having a persona helps you get a clearer view of who might be your target audience and then, what the type of content they are interested in is. If you need help creating a persona, check out our Persona Generator.

Second, plan your actions throughout the week/month. Planning your moves is essential to having a structured way of setting up when each post will be made and keeping it all organized, so you will not miss a date. 

You can use a calendar, a simple spreadsheet or any other platform to do so. If you want it all even easier, you can download our Marketing Planning Bundle.

As we have seen, we can create different types of content based on our persona and the time of the day we are posting it. So you can think of different possibilities for the content you want to create. Always keep in mind the main goal of your post when planning it. 

Now you know that if it is a rich material, you should plan the launch for a morning, but if you are just giving general tips or a more extrovert topic, you better post it in the evening. 

Last but not least, keep your eyes on the numbers. Follow up the performance of your posts and try to understand the patterns on the data. This way, you see when and which posts are performing the best and how to improve your strategy.

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