When discussing Facebook’s organic reach, the debate among marketers never seems to end. Cracking the code to crawl into the feed of your followers can be challenging but possible. And, if you are one of those business owners who frequently examine their engagement metrics, then this blog article is for you.
So, what helps your engagement? Post timing? What are the best times to post on Facebook? Is there such a thing as “best time to post on Facebook?” In this article, your go-to social media agency in Florida brings you the inside scoop regarding post-timing and maximizing organic reach, comments, shares, and likes on the platform.
Facebook and Paid Ads
For a while now, most marketers and businesses have been somewhat neglecting the most valuable Facebook post times and focused more on paid ads on the social channel. Still, when looking at things realistically, stretching daily social reach with a paid ads budget might not be the best way to maximize your gains from this social platform. So, when is the best time to post on Facebook? Let’s find out.
The Best Time to Post on Facebook
When should you post something on the platform to get the best results? Looking at different large-scale studies, you will get one resounding conclusion: There is no “best time” to post on Facebook. Sounds tricky and contradictory, right? Hold on a second, and we’ll get into it.
Popular social media companies have conducted larger-scale studies examining different Facebook posting times and the reach the posts managed to generate.
Some companies found that 9 AM is an excellent time since that’s when people get to work. Other companies cite different days of the week and specific times. In contrast, other results suggest different “from-to” time periods on weekdays and weekends as ballpark figures to get the best results from organic Facebook posting.
To be more specific, Hootsuite conducted a large-scale study examining 30,000 social media posts and concluded that the best time to post on Facebook would be between 8 AM to 12 PM on Thursdays and Tuesdays.
They’ve also looked at the data and found that these are the best Facebook post times for every day of the week:
- Monday — 6 AM to 4 PM (EST)
- Tuesday — 7 AM to 4 PM (EST)
- Wednesday — 7 AM to 4 PM (EST)
- Thursday — 7 AM to 4 PM (EST)
- Friday — 7 AM to 4 PM (EST)
- Saturday — 8 AM to 3 PM (EST)
- Sunday — 11 AM to 4 PM (EST)
And while we cited specific info from one study only, you can see that every research on the subject suggests different Facebook posting times.
Don’t be discouraged, though. While the best time to post on Facebook might be elusive and different for every specific case, these guidelines are still helpful to guide business owners and marketers in creating more efficient Facebook content calendars for boosting organic reach.
Furthermore, the team here at Rosy Strategies will help you estimate the best time for your Facebook posts.
Determining Best Facebook Post Times
Your target audience will be different from the business next to you. That said, answering the question, “When is the best time to post on Facebook?” will be different for every business owner and marketer.
Sure, following the above-mentioned time frames can be helpful for setting up continuity in your organic posting and Facebook post times. Still, as much as these scheduling statistics can help you, they can also leave you without any tangible results. Why?
For starters, you have to consider the personal feed of your followers. Some sources say that users on the platform have created more than 2.5 trillion posts.
People with a large number of friends on the platform can experience a massive flood of several hundred or even thousands of stories and posts every time they log in. And when you consider that a vast number of other businesses will use the same scheduling guideline to share their content, the best time to post on Facebook can quickly become the worst time to post on Facebook for some companies.
Finding the Best Time to Post on Facebook
With all this, you might think there are simply no ideal Facebook posting times, and you should just wing it. False.
Several strategies can help you find YOUR best time to post on Facebook to get the most out of your content and help your business grow on the platform.
As such, consider the following strategies:
Look at Facebook Insights
Facebook Analytics is an excellent place to figure out when is the best time to post on Facebook for your business. It tracks your followers’ and audiences’ demographics, engagement, and behavior.
Also, you have a wide range of social publishing tools that can track crucial metrics that can help you better understand when you should post on the platform to catch most of your audience online.
Using these tools can help you find out when your audiences and faithful fans are active, and you can combine the findings from both Facebook’s analytics and other third-party tools to find out an ideal posting time.
Look Back at Your Most Successful Posts
Scroll back in your business feed and review some of your best-performing posts. When did you post them? What were the posts about? This can be vital clues not just for finding out the best Facebook posting times but to see what type of content performs the best in your case.
You can also access Meta’s Business suite to get even more specific data:
- When the content was published
- Content type
- Whether it was paid or organic
- Reach (both organic and paid)
- Reactions and likes
Finding Relevant Days for Posts
Lastly, every piece of content has its own relevance regarding posting times. Just think about it this way: A fashion brand probably won’t post its upcoming winter clothes in June. And while this is a self-explanatory example, it can help you better understand the best posting times for most content types.
On the other hand, you can always opt for A/B testing with the same type of content at different times and come to your unique conclusion.
What to Conclude From All This?
As it turns out, there’s no definitive best or worst time to post on Facebook. It all boils down to user behavior, your brand, and some experimentation.
Using Facebook’s insights, third-party scheduling, and analytics tools can help you gain insight into user behavior, activity, engagement trends, and more. Analyzing your data is crucial as every business and Facebook page will have to get different results as they are part of different scenarios, even though they are on the same platform.
Looking back on your best-performing posts can also give you clues on when to post something and what type of content performs the best at certain times. As said above, most of this boils down to experimentation and experience.
Still, we know that most business owners simply don’t have the time to experiment with different posting times as they need to conduct business to keep their brand going forward.
This is where we, an experienced social media agency, come into the picture. We have the knowledge that will drastically decrease the time spent experimenting and will maximize the gains of your organic social posts quickly.
To begin your journey towards Facebook success, contact us today; we’re ready to help!