What are the best days and the best times to post on Facebook? Marketers, such as ourselves, have asked ourselves this question over the years. Because we know that finding the key moment to upload something to our social media accounts can make a difference between a post that goes completely unnoticed and one that ends up becoming viral.
Luckily, there have been many studies and experiments done on this subject, so there’s more than enough information to give us a good idea.
The answer to this question is not any universal magic formula, but there are ways we can get very interesting clues to maximize the performance of our content, and test different times.
So if you want to know what’s the best time and day to post on Facebook along with other super useful tricks to improve your engagement on this social network, we will be breaking this down.
Facebook: The Best Day and Time to Post
The best time to post on Facebook is on Fridays at around 12:00pm-4:00pm Eastern Standard Time.
The first thing to know about posting on your perfect day and time on Facebook is that, unfortunately, the Facebook algorithm is not on our side. The thing is that users usually follow a large number of pages and groups over the years, so the vast majority of posts never show up in the Latest News section, otherwise the amount of content would overwhelm them.
Facebook is also interested in keeping people on the site. If you’re sharing content that’s attempting to drive people off of Facebook and onto your site, the algorithm will work against you. The Facebook algorithm seems to be interested in keeping users engaged, active, and on Facebook.
To try to overcome this obstacle, we must try to focus on encouraging interaction with our posts. The greater the number of comments and reactions, the greater the perceived interest of the publication by the algorithm and in turn, we are going to have more chances to have our posts surfaced in more of our followers’ feeds.
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Another resource that some brands are forced to go to is the Boosting or post promotion feature Facebook offers to everyone and not just brands. Boosting or promoting a post increases the reach of a post in exchange for payment.
Including promotion in your Facebook strategy will allow you to increase your reach and interactions with others in your posts. But even when using this feature, we’re still interested in knowing how to publish our content at the perfect moment, when more users will see them. This will maximize the potential of every post we publish, whether we boost them or not.
Best time and day according to research
So let’s see what general statistics says:
- Fridays are an optimal day to publish, since the stats show that during Fridays 17% of the comments, 16% of “likes and shares” and 25% of video views are happening. Besides that, let’s not forget that Fridays have the highest happiness index of the week.
- According to Buddy Media, a study shows that 86% of content is published during weekdays and interactions reach their highest point on Thursdays and Fridays.
- Another study revealed that the highest number of interactions per publication (when talking about brands) happens on Wednesdays. In addition, it appeared as thought there were less posts published on Wednesdays overall, so there may be a chance for you and your content to stand out during that day.
- As for the best time to publish on Facebook, an analysis of 18 different studies reveals that the highest success rate occurs between 12 noon and 4 in the afternoon. In second place would be 9 in the morning and 8 at night.
While this data could be used as a guide for when to post, remember to experiment and find the time that works best for you and your brand. You’ll never know what days and times work best until you try it. Don’t have any assumptions about your audience. Test, test, test!
Do different tests and measure the results to see what works best for you. Facebook provides easy to read numbers for you to get an idea on how your posts are doing there. Try different combinations of post types, days, and times and see where your audience engages with you most. Also consider the timezones the majority of your audience resides in.
Best time to post on Facebook infographic
What to do to improve your Engagement Rate on Facebook
Knowing what the best day and time to post on Facebook is, is very important, but of course it doesn’t end there. That’s not everything. We’re going to see some useful data extracted from a complete guide about posting on Facebook, which will help you know how to multiply interactions with your posts.
The results of this study states that 777 million Facebook posts were analyzed to discover which pages, brands and videos generated the most interactions. Here are some conclusions:
- If you want to improve your interaction rate on Facebook, bet on video. The stats show without any doubt that posting videos is king when it comes to engaging an audience. This makes sense if we consider that Facebook is trying to focus on generating “significant engagement” among users, and of course, videos can get any user to stop what they’re doing to watch them. Video posts generate 59% more interactions than other types of content. Below videos, in second place would be posts with questions and in third place, just photos.
- The length of your content is also a determining factor when talking about generating engagement between users. In text publications, being clear and concise with your content works best. Posts with less than 50 characters generated about 380 interactions on average, while this number dropped to 270 for posts between 50 and 100 characters and continued to go even lower as the post length increased.
- As for the videos, it seems that the best option is something like a middle ground: videos that generated the most interactions were between 3 and 4 minutes long. Specifically, these types of videos reached 1500 interactions on average. On the other hand, if your video is going to run more than 3 minutes, it’s recommended that your brand identification (or your name in case you’re promoting yourself as an artist for example) and calls to action be placed before this point.
In 2011 study, five main reasons why users share online information was identified. The 5 reasons are: to delight other people with valuable and entertaining content, to identify ourselves and introduce ourselves to other people, to feed our relationships, self-realize and to spread the word about problems, products and brands.
Content that evokes an emotion response or reaction is more likely to get engagement. The more polarizing the topic is, generally the more discussions and shares that happens around it. We’re not suggesting being controversial on purpose (although that can work, too) instead identify the emotional response you want out of your piece of content, and tailor it for that kind of engagement.
Another thing you should be doing, is ensuring you’re scheduling content ahead of time. This way you never fall behind and you stay consistent when it comes to sharing content with your audience.
Finally, any constant analysis and tracking engagement is recommended for you to be able to maximize the reach of your content on Facebook. Take a look at what your posts with more success are, try to see what they have in common, apply these lessons and evaluate the results, adjust your actions, analyze the engagement of the competitor’s Facebook pages and modify your own social media marketing strategy based on the conclusions. It’s all about trial and error. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and experimenting.
Do you have a personal day and time that works best for you on Facebook? Any other engagement tips you’d like to share? Leave them below in our comments.
