Is There Really a 'Best Time to Post' Social Media Updates?
Brent Csutoras
Reddit Marketing Strategist | Driving Authentic Engagement & Brand Success | Digital Strategy Expert
We all want to know what the best time to post a social media update is, but the answer isn’t always straightforward.
With differing algorithms for different social media sites, various time zones to contend with, and different audiences, is there really a universal “best time†to post?
I’ll dig into data that helps demystify this issue, so you can figure out how to approach posting social media updates.
Algorithms Versus Time of Day
Most — but not all — social media platforms have evolved from being chronological timelines to using algorithms to predict relevancy to the user.
That means that the social platforms try to surface the updates they believe is the most relevant based on different signals, whether it’s engagement, timeliness, and other factors.
While posting at a specific time might be relevant to the people who are logged in at that moment, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your users won’t see your content at some point when they log in, even if you posted earlier in the day.
There are some caveats.
Let’s go over those next by taking a closer look at the social media algorithms of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The social network announced a new ranking algorithm in 2018:
Today we use signals like how many people react to, comment on or share posts to determine how high they appear in News Feed. With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion.
With this new algorithm, brands will have to work even harder to be seen:
- More posts from friends and family will surface with less public content from brands.
- Pages might see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease.
- Pages with posts that prompt conversations between friends will see less of a negative impact.
- People who want to see more posts from their favorite brands can update their news feed preferences by choosing what they want to see.
- Live video may be a good way to keep the community engaged (according to Facebook, they garner 6x the engagement as regular video). In this case, timing the live video with when your audience is online can be key.
In 2018, Instagram refreshed its algorithm to help surface newer posts in the Instagram Feed:
Based on your feedback, we’re also making changes to ensure that newer posts are more likely to appear first in feed. With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about. So if your best friend shares a selfie from her vacation in Australia, it will be waiting for you when you wake up.
Instagram’s algorithm is not purely chronological though.
It still works to surface the most relevant content for users based on engagement, but timing is now an influential ranking signal.
According to Instagram, the Instagram Feed ranks posts based on:
- Likelihood you’ll be interested in the content.
- Date the post was shared.
- Previous interactions with the person posting.
Other things to consider with the Instagram algorithm include the idea that it may reward posts based on your profile’s interaction with followers, including how quickly you interact, and using the right hashtags.
The LinkedIn Feed ranks updates based on thousands of signals across three main categories:
- Identity: Who are you? Where do you work? What are your skills? Who are you connected with?
- Content: How many times was the update viewed? How many times was it “liked� What is the update about? How old is it? What language is it written in? What companies, people, or topics are mentioned in the update?
- Behavior: What have you liked and shared in the past? Who do you interact with most frequently? Where do you spend the most time in your news feed?
Users can manually switch to most recent updates in the feed within the platform.
The Twitter timeline is called “timeline†for a reason: its tweets are ranked in reverse chronological order, with the most recent tweets showing at the top.
In 2016, Twitter made a slight change to its functionality where users could choose to turn on a feature that allows Twitter to serve the most relevant tweets for users, in reverse chronological order:
Here’s how it works. You flip on the feature in your settings; then when you open Twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you’re most likely to care about will appear at the top of your timeline – still recent and in reverse chronological order. The rest of the Tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order, as always. At any point, just pull-to-refresh to see all new Tweets at the top in the live, up-to-the-second experience you already know and love.
However, back in 2016, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed in a tweet that a “live†and “real time†feed would always be a staple of Twitter.
So as far as Twitter goes, timing definitely matters.
Continue reading at Search Engine Journal here : https://www.searchenginejournal.com/is-there-a-best-time-to-post-social-media-updates/272507/ and check out specific times released in a recent study.