Are you maximizing your posts' reach? When are you posting? If you're not sure, this episode will clear things up for you. In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Happy Hour, Dawn and Traci share with you when the best times to post are, as well as some important things to keep in mind when posting.
A few weeks ago, Dawn put together a blog and Traci also did a Periscope on a similar topic that was based on a question that gets asked a lot of times by our followers. That's why we decided to talk about this topic on the podcast as well. To answer the question, “When are the best times to post on social media?”, here are a few insights we’d like to share:
Know the best possible times to post.
Our friends over at Microsoft recently put together a cool infographic where they shared data in terms of when is the best time to post over on email, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. This data is very helpful and it allows you to reevaluate your own posting times on your different social media channels, especially when you've already established a good following. It is a really great guideline. You can check out this infographic on one of our previous blog posts.
To some people, however, this kind of information intimidates them and puts unnecessary pressure and strain on them. When they feel that they need to follow those schedules accurately, they end up not getting anything out there. If you are still starting out, don't get too technical on scheduling.
Just get your stuff out there.
Knowing the best times to post is a huge plus, but we think you should post as much as you can. Only when you start building an audience, that's the time you can begin to factor in scheduling and the like so you can maximize those posts. Yes, there are optimal times to post, but what really matters is that you are actually posting or emailing at all.
Consider time zones when posting.
It's important to get your time zones right, especially when you are marketing internationally. For example, we have a member of our Inner Circle who had problem with posting about Australia Day. They were in North America and their entire audience was in Australia. What happened was they had a huge miss because they posted during North America time zone. So by the time that post hit, that day was over in Australia.
If you've had this problem with your emails, there are some autoresponders like GetResponse which allows you to schedule emails to be sent on specific local times. Like if you schedule it to be sent at 10:00 AM, it will hit everybody's inbox at exactly 10:00 AM, in their own local time. This will help increase your reach.
Test and find what works for you.
There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes down to it. You have to find the best times to post or send emails, depending on where your audience is and what time they're usually online. You have to test things until you get it right. As entrepreneurs, it's up to us to serve people the best we can. And we can do this by showing up when they need us the most.
If you haven't already, we invite you to join our amazing Happy Hour Marketing #Gamechangers group over at Facebook. Just go to www.HappyHourHangouts.com/fbgroup.
By the way, it's Traci's birthday! Don't forget to Tweet us @SMMHappyHour and give our very own WICKED AWESOME Traci Reuter a big high-five and a nice birthday shout-out! Dawn has a surprise in store for those who have do just that!
