A lot of viral content originates from social media. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise, though, since there are over 2 billion eyeballs on social media just waiting to find some precious and juicy content they could share.
With such content-hungry audiences, you might be wondering “why hasn’t my juicy and super shareable post gone viral yet?!”
Well, there are two elements to making a post go viral: The right content + The right time = Viral content!
No matter how well-crafted or heart-warming your post is, if your audience doesn’t see it on their timeline at the time they are online, your post will just be flooded in social media’s digital void of unseen content.
And it also goes the other way around: post a crappy and blurry shot of your pet cat doing something really amazing at the right time, you still won’t go viral — You might even get some backlash. ouch.
When’s The Right Time?
Now that you know that posting time matters just as much as having good content, you must be asking “okay, so when’s the best time to post on social media?”
Well, here’s the catch:
There’s no one sweet spot for the best time to post on social media.’
Different studies on social media post timing arrived at different answers: some say weekends are a good time to post on Facebook, while some say Wednesday at noon is the best; others also say Thursday is the best day to post on Twitter, but other studies say that Thursday is the slowest day on twitter.
A lot of different things are being said about magical posting times on social media, and there’s just no way of knowing which one is right.
Despite this news, don’t worry: There’s still a way of determining the best time to post for your brand — there are factors you will need to consider when determining when is the best time for you to post on social media.
What Factors You Should Consider
Here are a few things you should consider when determining the best time for you to post on social media:
Industry – Your line of business does matter when posting on social media since this will determine the kind of content you’ll be posting on social media. Industries like food, travel, and even interior design and the arts have an advantage when it comes to getting engagements and followers on social media because of most people on social media are interested in these activities.
Content – The type of content you’re posting is also a big factor when it comes to knowing the best time to post on social media. if you’re posting something relevant to a current event that just happened, there’s a high chance people will engage with your post if you post it when the event is still fresh in the audience’s mind.
For content, relevance is key. the more relevant your content is at a certain time, the better it is to post. For example: posting your restaurant’s lunch promo for the day at 10 am will get good engagement by the time lunchtime comes.
Post Objective – Another thing you should consider before finding the best time to post is the objective of the post. This will affect how people see your post and how they will choose to engage it. If your post is for a store sale, it would be best to post later in the week (around Thursday or Friday) when many are looking forward to the weekend. Posting interesting facts or a funny promotional video earlier in the week might get a lot of engagement too since people will look for content that can ease their daily stress.
Audience – Lastly, audience profile is a big factor you need to consider. Your post must have a targeted audience or else you won’t be able to maximise your marketing effort and your post engagement might end up targetting the wrong market — or worst, not targetting any market at all.
If your target market is the working class, you’ll need to understand their behaviour on social media: when do they go online, when do they want to see shopping promotions, when do they prefer to see interesting videos, etc. By making a profile of your target audience, and other similar audiences, you can easily find a good time to post and get good engagement.
Find Your Sweet Spot
Finding a one-size-fits-all timeframe for posting on social media is a fool’s errand. There’s just no way you can find a specific “magic moment” where you will get the most engagement for any post you publish on social media. Making a post go viral — or even just getting the maximum engagement possible — will depend on many different factors and not just the time you post it. Getting the most out of your social media marketing requires research, planning, and constant monitoring.
If you want to maximise your social media marketing, it would be to your advantage to hire a competent SEO team to help you find that “sweet spot”.