When is the best time to post on Facebook? I hear this question all the time from clients. You work hard to create your content and you want to be sure that your content is seen before it disappears into Facebook’s algorithm.
As individuals, we post all the time to our Facebook pages at any time of the day and hardly notice a drop in our friend’s engagement.
But when you try to do the same in your business, do you find that the reactions are the same?
Probably Not.
This is because when a business posts to Facebook, Facebook will only show that content to a small portion of your audience to “test the waters”. If that part of your audience engages with your post then Facebook will continue to show it to more people.
So how do you make sure your content will be seen by the select few Facebook decides to show it to?
When is the best time to post on Facebook
Keep in mind that Facebook’s News Feed is constantly moving forward and users can view what is in their feed as the Most Recent Posts or Top Stories.
Top Stories is the default view for all users on Facebook. The content that is brought to the top are those stories that are from friends and pages that have already received attention. Facebook uses its own algorithm to determine what is relevant to that reader. If your post has not been seen or interacted with, then the algorithm will not bring it to the reader’s attention.
Most recent stories allow readers to see what has been posted in chronological order. This feed will let the reader see everything regardless of interaction, however, if your business posts at 9am but the reader doesn’t log on until 9:30pm, depending on that reader’s daily activity, they may never see your post from the beginning of the day. Additionally, because Facebook is focused more on engagement users have to actively change their setting to see the most recent stories.
So doesn’t it make sense then to post at a time when your fans are most likely to see it? Wouldn’t that be the best time to post on Facebook (for you)?
But how do you know when that time is? Easy!
How to find the best time to post on Facebook (for you)
- Log into your Facebook Business Page
- At the top of your business Facebook Page, you will see a menu with an option for Insights. Select that.
- Once you are brought into this area of Facebook you will see a new left-hand menu. In that menu, click on Posts.
- The first graph you see will tell you about when your fans are online. Use that information when deciding the best time to post your content.
This business has 204 followers. The top graph shows a day by day accounting of the number of fans that were online in the past week.
The graph below shows a 24-hour time span and the volume of when fans were online at what time. The initial graph will show the weekly average. If you take your mouse and hover over a specific day in the week you will see the volumes for that specific day.
In this example, this business would see that on Saturdays 181 of their 204 followers are online that day. By looking at the hour-by-hour graph they can see that most of those fans were online at 1:00pm PST.
So for this business, if they were only going to create one post that day, posting it at 1pm would give them the best chance at getting their content in front of more people.
If you move day to day you can see the shift in your fan base.
TIP: Watch the time zone when you are reading these graphs. This business is in the Eastern Time Zone, but the graph is reporting results in the Pacific Time Zone.
Get Posting at the Best Time to Post on Facebook
There are plenty of infographics and stats that will tell you when the best time to post on Facebook is. But the truth is the best time to post on Facebook is really based on your fan base.
Keep in mind that as your fan base grows this chart will change, so be sure to check in on it often. The more you customize your posting schedule with content that is interesting to them, the more likely they are to engage with you!
Happy Posting!
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