The Absolute Best Time To Post To Social Media

People all over the world are trying to figure out when the best and worst time is to post to their social media accounts. Pinterest is filled with graphs to show you exactly what time is 'prime' time and which ones to avoid at all costs. Most of those graphs match up, and it seems that following those guidelines is a MUST if you ever want to build a good following on any social media platform.

Well, I'm here to debunk that whole theory and show you exactly what really works! I'll show you how you can look at your own fan page stats and find out where your followers are located as well as what time they're online!  

WHY I SCHEDULED ALL MY POSTS AT THE PERFECT TIME

As a good business owner, I started to schedule all my important posts at 2-3 PM. Why? Because that seemed to be the best time for me to post to reach most of the people on my page. Life appeared to be perfect, that 2-3pm window to me was the perfect time to post and I loved feeling that everyone that followed me on Facebook was seeing my posts because of this prime time of posting. 

TIMEZONES MAKE POSTING AT THE PERFECT TIME LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE

That feeling went away when I left Florida and visited Hawaii. And I realized one simple thing: Hawaii is 5 hours behind Florida, which meant all my perfectly scheduled posts at 3:00 pm my time were actually posted at 10:00 am for those in Hawaii. I realized how silly the idea of 'a perfect posting time' was.

Everything I posted in Hawaii was posted quite randomly and I never once noticed a drop in interaction, if anything, the interaction was way up. 

It's a pretty basic concept, but for many of us we live in a world where we feel that there is this perfect window to post something, when in reality that only works if your entire following is located in the same place. (I'm willing to bet that even if you have a 'local business' you have people from all over following your page. And just in case i'm totally wrong about it, and you do have a following that is just from one place, I'll even show you how to see when the best time is for you) 

How do you find out where people are from on your page?! 

Go to your fan page > Promotions > People

On my page my top cities are:

• London, United Kingdom. (Whaaaat? Maybe I need to make a trip and visit!)
• New York, New York. 
• Huston, Texas. 
• Jacksonville, Florida. 
• Melbourne, Australia
• Ocala, Florida. 
• Perth, Australia. 

As you can see, even if I schedule ALL my posts at 3 PM my time, there's no way to ensure that I am reaching people in those places at their best time. There are people from hundreds of cities all over the world that follow my page. Those seven places are just a small fraction of people that follow me on my page. 

SO IF IT'S NOT ABOUT TIME, WHAT REALLY MATTERS?

What was weird was that I actually saw my fan page grow, noticed more interactions and felt like posting at 3 pm sharp was doing the trick. Now that I know that wasn't the case, I realize that it has nothing to do with WHEN you post, but that you are posting CONSISTENTLY. 

As much as people dislike Facebook hiding our posts, it rewards us when we do it on a regular basis. The more consistent you can become with posting on your page, the more people will end up seeing your posts. 

Now I will say this; you CAN find out when the best time is to post by quickly looking to see when you have the most interaction on your page. 

Go to your fan page > Promotions > Posts

And you'll see something that I like to call 'the whale.' (you might have something different but I bet it looks kind of like mine, regardless of where you are!) This graph shows me when everyone that follows my page is online, in my timezone. This shows me that as long as I post between 6am-11pm, my posts will have the best chance to reach the most amount of people.

That's pretty different from the whole 3 pm theory right? 

SCHEDULE YOUR POSTS! 

There are two awesome tools I love using to to make this happen.

1. I love using my Yearly Social Media Schedule, it comes with pre written posts and lays out my entire year ( every single day!)  so I can easily create a plan for the whole year. Without this I would be posting consistently would be hard to do. (Pssst. It's 50% off today!)

2. Post Planner (my affiliate link) makes it easier than ever to schedule my posts for the future. I have certain posts that I want to make sure to post every single month. EXAMPLE: the fact that I shoot weddings. This is one of those posts that I want to post ever month but don't want to have to remember to sit there and post it ever single month. For this I use Post Planner. All I have to do is login, write out my post, make it perfect and then pick when I want to post it during the month. If I want to repeat it, I hit the 'repeat forever, monthly' button and that's done. I just saved myself having to repost the same post 12 times a year. 

EXAMPLE: the fact that I shoot weddings. This is one of those posts that I want to post every month but don't want to have to remember to sit there and post it ever single month. For this, I use Post Planner. All I have to do is login, write out my post, make it perfect and then pick when I want to post it during the month. If I want to repeat it, I hit the 'repeat forever, monthly' button and that's done. I just saved myself having to repost the same post 12 times a year. 

Side note: You page certainly shouldn't consist of ALL scheduled post, that would get boring and repetitive, but there are so many posts you should have each month that are often forgotten. Remind people every month of the services you offer! 

Most importantly, use your social media platform as a two way conversation with those that follow you. Enjoy engaging with them with content you are passionate about, and learn to be consistent with it. When you learn to have a conversation with them vs talking at them you'll see your numbers grow in no time!