With the growing complexity of Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm, finding the best time to post on Facebook is more difficult every year.
But it’s still worth researching—The truth is, the right time for you to post on Facebook will be different from the right time for someone else to post on Facebook.
Don’t worry, though; we’re here to help!
We’ll show you some general patterns you can use to get started, and we’ll offer strategies to help you find the best time to post on Facebook for your business.
Fact: if you post on Facebook when your target audience is online, you boost visibility and improve your overall results.
So how do you know which times are best for your brand?
It’s all about understanding your industry and your followers’ behaviors and preferences.
What Are the Best Times to Post on Facebook, in General?
According to a recent HubSpot survey, Facebook is the top social media channel for brands and has the highest ROI of any social platform. That means brands have a lot of competition on Facebook, which makes the timing of posts crucial.
If you post when your target audience is online, they are more likely to see your post and therefore are more likely to click or comment. When your posts receive a lot of engagement, Facebook’s new algorithm will prioritize content from your brand and place it at the top of users’ feeds.
The best time to post on Facebook depends on your audience and when they’re active online. However, there are a few general trends to keep in mind when timing posts.
According to HubSpot, the best day to post on Facebook for click-through rate is Sunday. There is no significant difference between weekdays, but there is a slight dip in clicks on Fridays and Saturdays.
After Facebook changed its algorithm, Hootsuite conducted research and found a difference in the best day for B2B and B2C brands to post content. According to the graph of their 2019 data, Monday and Tuesday are the best days for B2B brands, and Tuesday is the best day for B2C brands.
Hootsuite’s research also showed that the best time to post on Facebook for B2C brands is around noon (EST), corresponding with lunchtime when many people are on a break from work. If you are a B2B brand, the best time to post on Facebook is any point during standard work hours, especially from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m EST.
Posting regularly is just as (or more) important than posting at certain times. It’s common for businesses to post three to four times per week. This frequency ensures that your followers regularly see new content, but you aren’t spamming or overwhelming their feed.
3 Strategies to Find the Best Time to Post on Facebook for your Business
There isn’t a single day or time when every business’s target audience is online and especially active.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t find optimal times to post for your brand.
By reviewing post analytics and researching user activity, you can find out when your audience is on Facebook and likely to engage with your content.
Strategy #1: Use Facebook Analytics
The first and possibly most effective strategy is to look at your post and audience insights on Facebook.
These analytics data help you better understand your audience’s behaviors and demographics.
Posts performance metrics in Facebook Analytics
Look at the performance of individual posts to see which have received the most engagement.
You’ll have to check timestamps manually, but it’s a good way to start understanding exactly which types of posts perform well at certain times.
You can also use Facebook analytics to get an overview of when your audience is most active, helping you to determine when might be your best time to post on Facebook.
Go to the Posts section of the Insights page; it will show you When Your Fans Are Online.
Just remember to check for the time zone so you’re able to see peak activity times for all of your audiences.
Facebook Insights showing post performance by time zone.
How We Found Our Best Time to Post on Facebook (and how you can find yours too)
We conducted this research ourselves.
We found that our B2B group AdEspresso University Facebook Group showed a significant decrease in engagement on the weekend.
AdEspresso University Facebook Group engagement via Insights
This tells us that we should schedule important posts only on a weekday.
And with the most comments and reactions happening on Wednesdays, posting our most essential updates on that day is a good idea.
Now that we know which day is best for this group, what about the time?
Popular post times per Facebook Insights
There’s a significant spike around 5 p.m. UK time (which is the time zone shown in the graph above). That translates to:
- 4 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
- Noon Eastern Daylight Time
- 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time
As an international group, we need to make sure that we’re offering content at the right time for as many members as possible. Posting during these optimal times would help us reach all three of these time zones at once.
We regularly post our most immediate and actionable content at around this time.
For example, webinars require that people are actually in attendance to be successful, so Facebook insights are invaluable for choosing when to schedule that type of content.
Based on the research for the AdEspresso University Facebook group, Wednesday at noon EDT would be the best time for us to post on Facebook.
Pro Tip: Facebook insights typically show a week’s worth of data at once. Check back regularly to track patterns across weeks and months, and see whether any days or times emerge where your audience is consistently active.
Strategy #2: Find Your Answers Through A/B Testing
Another way to determine when your target audience is the most engaged is to post the same content at different times. This gives you a way to see how content performance varies based on when you post.
Use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite to set up these tests ahead of time and provide engagement metrics to track their success.
Schedule your Facebook posts with tools like Hootsuite
A/B testing can also show you whether there are times when your audience is more engaged, even if, technically, it is not their peak time to be online.
For example, Facebook Insights might tell you that most of your audience is online at 9 p.m., but your A/B testing might show that they are more engaged at noon, during their lunch breaks.
A/B testing is ideal for both posts and Facebook Ads, which are just as time-dependent as any organic content you make.
Strategy #3: Perform a Competitor Analysis
Follow competitors’ Facebook business pages to track how they’re timing their posts so you’re able to improve your own scheduling.
Compare your competitors’ posting schedule to your audience insights. Are there times when your audience is active, but your competitors don’t typically post?
Scheduling your content to go out at those times can help you stand out and have less competition for post engagement.
A competitive analysis also shows you the different types of content you’re up against and can help you differentiate yourself from the crowd.
Find the Best Time to Post on Facebook with Research and Scheduling
Well, now it’s clear: the best times to post on Facebook—along with Twitter and Instagram, for that matter—depend on your specific audience and their social media habits.
As you’re building your business page, test out posting at different times, and see what works best.
Use the tools and strategies discussed above to find your optimal posting times for different types of content. The data gathered from these strategies will help you identify times when your audience is most active online.
With more customers seeing your posts, you’re likely to see more engagement on Facebook. And that tells the social platform that users are interested in this content, which will have a positive impact on its ranking in users’ feeds.
What are the best times to post on Facebook for your specific audience? How did you find your optimal posting times? Leave us a comment, and let us know what you think!