Ever since Facebook
burst onto the scene in 2004, social media has become the
be-all and end-all for
young people.
Since then, social media branched out and now you can find everyone
and their mother using some form of social media. The truth of 2023 is that
people care about social media.
We go online to post ourselves and to see what everyone else has posted. The main goal in this exercise is to get as many people as
humanly possible to see what you are posting and hopefully, they will
like, share and comment. If they hit the follow button, you have officially achieved success with your post.
So here's the question, really:
How do we get the button pressed? With social media, as with most things in life,
timing is everything! media update's Alrika Möller explains the best times to post on social media platforms for maximum engagement:
Let's start with Facebook
While Facebook may be the
OG in social platforms, the main users have changed a few times over the years. A lot of
Facebook users are working individuals that have to
plan their scrolling time around their work hours.
This is why the
most popular times for Facebook scrolling in South Africa are around
08:00 and
20:00 on weekdays. The platform gets the most traffic from Mondays to Thursdays, with Sundays being almost
as quiet as a mouse.If your target audience is
based in the United Kingdom (UK), the times and days change. They prefer to check out their Facebook timeline from
09:00 to
13:00 on weekdays. Weekends are once again, not that popular.
If you want to get the most engagement for your post, it might be a good idea to post around those times and days to ensure that it is at the
top of the page, just in case they don't end up scrolling
that far.
Time to look at Instagram
Instagram is one of those
unicorn platforms that manage to stay
relevant and
popular no matter how the world may change.
South African Instagram users tend to be
early risers, grabbing their phone to scroll as the sun comes up. This might be why the
highest number of users can be found around
05:00 to
06:00 and
11:00 to
midday on weekdays.
Weekends still get a lot of traffic, especially around the mornings; Saturday morning is seen as
prime posting time. If you want to reach the tea-drinking pub-going crowd, between
10:00 and
14:00 on weekdays will be your best bet. Weekends still get some
traction but not
nearly as much as weekday lunch time.
What about Twitter?
Twitter where things get a little bit
interesting! The
most popular days and times for tweeting away are
basically the same, no matter the country. This is
especially helpful to know if you have a more
international audience.
If you tweet between the hours of
09:00 to
13:00 on weekdays, you will get maximum engagement with your tweets.
Wednesday is the
golden goose with the highest numbers for the platform with peak hours sometimes extending to
16:00.
Once again, weekends are on the quiet side with lower numbers and
very little engagement on a Saturday.
Let's check out TikTok
TikTok might be the
newest social media platform, but it definitely started with a
bang and kept the momentum going.
Strangely enough, TikTok is popular all day every day, no matter the country.
There are
some sources supporting the following as peak hours:
- Mondays at 06:00, 10:00 and 22:00
- Tuesdays from 02:00 to 09:00
- Wednesdays from 07:00 to 08:00 and 23:00
- Thursdays from 09:00 to midday and 19:00
- Fridays at 05:00 and 13:00 to 15:00
- Saturdays from 11:00 and 19:00 to 20:00, and
- Sundays from 07:00 to 08:00 and 16:00.
Most sources find that there is
no peak time for TikTok.
Everyday gets high engagement on TikTok.
Now we can look at LinkedIn
LinkedIn can sometimes be seen as the
lesser fun platform, as it is mainly business and career focussed. Just like every other platform, there are peak times and
dead-quiet times. It can be very beneficial to know the difference.
The ideal posting times and days for LinkedIn are
quite similar for South Africa and the UK — with
a few differences.
South African LinkedIn users are mostly active from
08:00 to
10:00 Wednesdays to Fridays, with the
exception of Thursdays getting an extra
little boost around
13:00.
The UK is experiencing similar posting times of
08:00 to
10:00 on Wednesday and Thursday. They do,
however, swap their Friday peak times for Tuesdays from
08:00 to
10:00 as well as
14:00.
These peak posting hours are applicable for
both businesses and individuals.
So, it might be a good idea to keep them in mind as a job seeker and job poster.
Do you see better social media engagement during certain times and days? Let us know in the comments section below.
*Image courtesy of Canva