The best time of day to post on Facebook

A lot of research will tell you there is a magic formula for posting on Facebook. 

They will tell you the peak times of most traffic and that is when you should schedule your posts.

I don’t agree. 

The problem with posting at peak times…. 

… Is it is the peak time! That means it is when you'll have the most competition.

Instead, I recommend finding out when is the most engaging time for YOUR audience.

 For example - if you’re trying to get donations from Mums with pre-primary aged kids – you’re not going to get a lot of luck between 9-3pm, your posts are more likely to get seen at school drop off times, kids sports time and in the early evening when we are sitting down relaxing and more connected to an emotional message.

Don’t rely on what research says is the best time, find out by actually testing it with your audience. Post in lots of different time slots over two weeks and check your Insights to find out which ones got the best reach and engagement.

You can also follow these steps to find what your analytics says is the best time to post for your audience:

Step 1 – Go to your Facebook Page (you must be an admin). Click Insights on the left-hand side.

Just to add a little confusion, there are currently two places Facebook calls ‘Insights’ if you click and don’t get the menu shown below, go back, scroll down further and see if Insights is listed again lower down on the menu.

 

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Step 2 – Choose Posts from the left-hand navigation. On the right you will see a chart of when your specific audience is using Facebook each day.

 

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The one annoying thing, is that Facebook curently displays these times in USA Pacific Time. So you will have to convert the times to your own timezone to make sense of it.

You can try a time converter like Dateful.

What you're looking for is the times when the chart peaks the highest. This shows when most of your audience is online. Posting 15-30 minutes before that is often a great idea. 

Happy posting.