From obscure websites that let users connect with family and friends back in the day, social media is now a tool for businesses to widen their target market, share content with their business audiences, and maintain a positive online presence.
However, since technology tends to make everything fast-paced, some people just easily breeze through social media pages, without having a thorough look at content. This means that good social media campaigns must contain concise yet precise information for clients so that your social media page – and your business – can continue to engage people.
Meanwhile, one key factor in social media posting is when, and how often, you post content on your pages. Although you already have good content to post, not knowing the optimal time to promote it on social platforms may spell the difference between targeting the right audience with your post, or your content getting lost among the hundreds of headlines that appear your clients’ notification feeds.
When is the best time to post?
Even if you have the right content and a target audience, you can still optimize how wide your posts will reach by scheduling your social media content updates.
Knowing some general details on your audience is a start. For example, if you target business-oriented people, chances are they will be in their stations and working during office hours. Even posting during lunch times will be risky since most of them will also have working lunches and meetings during the day.
According to Microsoft, most popular social media sites have their timing trends on relevant social media posts.
- For the most popular social networking website, Facebook, the ideal posting days for social media content are Thursdays and Fridays, since this will be the days that most people are winding down from their hectic week schedules. On these days, most people are on Facebook between 9 in the morning to 7 in the evening and the peak hours are between 1 and 3 in the afternoon, where most will possibly click on social media links and may give a moment or two for thorough reading of a social media post. Having a Facebook page with an optimized posting schedule for social media content is a definite advantage since the platform is used by 71% of all internet users.
- Twitter is used by 23% of all internet users and should also be used in social media posting. Optimal posting times is 12 and 5 in the afternoon and 6 in the evening during weekdays since most users glance at their feeds during these hours. t also depends on the target audience. If your social media posts are for customers, it is revealed that engagement is at its highest during weekends. Meanwhile, B2B posts are being read at least 14% during weekdays than Saturdays and Sundays.
- Even at the age of social media, email messaging is still in. While messages may be read the most during weekdays, Thursday is still considered to be the peak days for email messages, and most of the messages get read on or about 10 in the morning.
Best practices in social media posting
There are some practices that are best to remember when posting business-oriented social media content. Below are some of them:
Identify appropriate platforms.
There are many social media websites that you can use to your advantage. However, having an account in all of the popular ones spreads yourself too thin, and may even be disadvantageous to the business. Pick up the right platform by checking out the audience first. If your target is business-oriented people, websites such as LinkedIn can readily suit your needs. Meanwhile, announcements and short notices can be shared via Twitter, while your general posts for how-to’s or reminders can be posted on Facebook.
Get to know your audience.
Being familiar with your audience will help you construct the right content to post in your social media pages. If you are targeting people who are always busy, some simple life hacks and/or life quotes are great content to make your online presence known. Tailoring suitable content and posts also plays out in a positive audience-to-client conversion.
Use images.
Since most people only glance at social media feeds, it is best to get their attention with pleasing and eye-catching images. Colorful infographics, animated shorts, even Vine videos are some of the best content materials that you can post relevant to what you are trying to get across.
Link email marketing with social media.
Although most people prefer to connect through social media nowadays, email messages still have an impact and is still one of the better tools for internet marketing. In fact, email is cited in 2014 as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the U.S., and most people still continue to check and go through their email inboxes first at the start of the day, before accessing their social media accounts. However, you can get the best of both worlds by linking your social media posts with your email marketing campaigns. It is shown that adding share and like buttons to email messages can increase click-through and reader conversion rates by as much as 150 percent.
Search on relevant schedules.
Although experts have already made some findings on the optimal times to post social media content, extra research on scheduling will not hurt, particularly if you are into locally-targeted posts. Details are important. For example, although social media schedules are specific, there are regions in the United States – such as Arizona – that doesn’t conform to Daylight Savings Time, so you should adjust your post schedules accordingly.
Get a professional.
Although you have access to social media, it is still best to get the services of skilled internet professionals and social media specialists to make the most out of your social media posts, since they have the right tools and knowledge to help you optimize your social media presence.
Courtesy: www.optimizex.com
