15 min read
Everything You Need to Know About the Best Time of Day to Post on Twitter
Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your business blogs and sales funnels. Waiting for your website to climb the ranks of Google search results can take years, but social media accounts can accelerate your website’s recognition quite easily. With active profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, anyone can reach a huge organic audience in a matter of weeks or days. Finding the best times to post content to your social media pages could take some experimenting, but this article is intended to speed up the process for you. Continue reading to learn the best practices for reaching your followers on social media.
FACT: As of 2020, Twitter has 152 million monetizable daily users (up 21% year over year).
Twitter in the Morning
Tweets are designed to stay relevant for a short time before fading into the background. That’s why it’s important to know the best time to post on Twitter and other social media platforms. Twitter offers its users several distinct advantages over other platforms, including better real-time feedback from followers and higher engagement with polls, surveys and questionnaires. For example:
However, these tools will be wasted if you use them when few of your followers are logged onto their accounts. Tweeting out your messages at the right time of the morning will increase your chance of engagement by up to 50 percent.
The best time to post on Twitter 2021 is at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, except on holidays. There is also a general time frame to use while engaging with your audience throughout the day. A good rule of thumb is to wait until at least 7 a.m. on any day you decide to tweet and conclude your morning tweeting before 11 a.m. Most of your followers will be getting ready for work on weekday mornings. Checking their Twitter feeds is a big part of their daily routines. The morning is the perfect time to present them with questions and comments that will make them think about your website.
Twitter in the Afternoon
The afternoon is a quiet time on social media, for the most part. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t post in the afternoon. It simply means that you should be aware of the limitations of afternoon engagement. Most people eat lunch and then continue their workdays in the afternoon, but there is still a sizable contingent of people using social media during this time. Despite the relatively low numbers of users logged into their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., a good strategy can still be effective at this time.
In fact, one of the best times to post on Instagram on the weekend is between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., when most people are relaxing at home and waiting to spend time with friends in the evening. The weekend is also one of the best times to post on Facebook 2021. This is because Facebook and Twitter have slightly different user bases than Twitter. While Twitter users tend to respond to brief thoughts and comments, Facebook and Instagram users prefer to engage with longer posts containing full-fledged ideas. Here is an example of the kind of brief posts we’re talking about:
The afternoon is the ideal time for longer posts, especially on the weekend, because users have enough time to read longer content without feeling tired after spending the whole day at work.
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Twitter in the Evening
Late afternoon and early evening pose their own challenges for website owners using Twitter and other social media to promote their brands. Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., most users are leaving work for the day and then focusing on eating dinner with their families. Only the heaviest users will check their Twitter feeds at this time, and it’s definitely not one of the best times to post on social media 2021. Unless your website provides a continuous stream of information, such as news, sports scores or stock market prices, it’s best to wait until after 7 p.m. to post to your account.
FACT:
Twitter users linger 24% longer over ads than users on other platforms, and:
- Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement
- Tweets with video get 10x more engagement
Twitter Past Midnight
While many users will go to bed by 9 p.m., a number of your followers will stake awake until the late hours of the night. Posting to your Twitter account between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. is the perfect way to speak to these users in language they will respond to. Nighttime posts should be slightly different than daytime posts. They should be more casual and less businesslike. Learning the difference between daytime and nighttime posting is a good way to find the best times to post on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. For example:
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These intimate and personal (sometimes humorous) posts are great for reaching your followers and coming across as authentic. They are not appropriate for websites with a corporate brand, such as a bank or petroleum firm, because most users don’t engage with corporations as individuals. If your website is about helping your customers have fun using your product or service, then taking a more personal tone in your tweets is appropriate. If, on the other hand, your website is about a household product or maintenance service, such as landscaping, roofing or window washing, then your social media posts should be businesslike and get straight to the point.
Twitter in the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
Relatively few users log onto social media platforms in the late night and early morning hours. However, as there are four time zones in the U.S. and many of your users may live in other countries, these hours should not be completely overlooked. During the late-night hours, the best types of social media posts include reminders of earlier posts and hints about upcoming events. These posts shouldn’t contain any information that is crucial to your brand because the majority of your followers will likely miss them. Instead, these posts should simply reinforce the messages that you have already conveyed with your account. Check out this example from Canva:
(Image credit: Canva)
Best Days of the Week for Twitter
The best days of the week for Twitter are Mondays and Fridays, according to data collected from thousands of users over several months. These days offer the best engagement for Twitter users who are trying to spread a message with a carefully crafted tweeting strategy. While Twitter users can optimize their engagement by posting around 9 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays, there is really no disadvantage to posting at other times on this platform. That’s because the best time to post on Twitter 2021 is always evolving.
The problem with publishing too many tweets is that you could annoy your followers, but this problem mainly occurs when your tweets are overly promotional or inauthentic. Therefore, in addition to learning when to publish tweets to your account, it’s also important to learn how to publish tweets that your followers will actually want to engage with. To do so, you have to give your followers useful or entertaining information without coming across as needy or fake. The skills needed to pull this off are the same basic social skills that you need to win over friends in the real world. This is a great example of promoting your content while infusing your tweet with humor:
Days to Avoid
To be on the safe side—and to give your Twitter account a more professional tone—you could avoid posting social media updates on weekends and holidays. By sticking to weekdays and working hours, you can create a brand image of a consistently reliable business and upstanding member of the community. Some examples of businesses that can benefit from avoiding weekends and holidays are B2B companies, savings and loan firms and home improvement contractors. These types of businesses can benefit from presenting a more professional image and avoiding too-frequent publishing or overly casual messages, which can come across as unnecessary and a waste of time. For businesses with more formal branding, weekends and holidays are not the best time to post on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platforms. This social media planner can be a great way to keep track of your social media posting schedule:
Holiday Posts
While certain types of businesses should avoid social media outside of working hours, other businesses can benefit from presenting a friendlier, more fun-loving image. This social media strategy requires top-notch communication skills and a little bit of talent, but the advantages of holiday publishing make this time of the year perhaps the best time to post on Twitter—as well as Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. During the holidays, there isn’t an optimal time of the day to post. Instead, tweets and posts should be timed to coincide with events that could cause your followers to gather around their social media feeds. For example:
(Image credit: prweek)
Or, on New Year’s Eve, your social media strategy could center on the countdown to midnight. During the day, you could drum up excitement for your brand by talking about the new year. Because most of your followers will be occupied during the actual countdown rather than reading their Twitter feeds, any tweets published after 9 p.m. will probably go unnoticed by the majority. However, you can still schedule tweets to go out as the evening wears on, and your followers in other time zones will be more likely to engage with these messages.
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Social Media Scheduling
A social media scheduling app can help you decide when to post to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. With a scheduler, you can take a hands-off approach to publishing content to your timelines while still remaining in control of your communication. Scheduling your messages can take the guesswork out of promoting your website to the people who may be most interested in your products, services or information. It offers users control over the best times to post on Facebook 2021 and beyond. Take this app called SocialPilot:
Before you begin scheduling your social media posts, however, you should already know your audience intimately. Ideally, your website should reflect your personal interests and passions, so your audience should be composed of people with similar interests. Your social media scheduling strategy needs to be fine-tuned enough to reach your target audience without ignoring or annoying any of your regular followers. By concentrating your posts around peak times and staggering the timing of your tweets, you can maximize your engagement with highly interested audience members.
Increasing Followers
A good social media strategy can go a long way towards increasing your followers. You can accomplish this goal with or without a scheduling app, and the results will be largely the same. By personally posting your tweets and other messages, you’ll be able to give your followers instant feedback on their comments. This type of engagement can help to drive up your follower base over time, especially on Twitter, where tweets can come in long strings of thoughts or quick rejoinders to other people’s messages.
A good strategy is necessary to boost your followers on other social media platforms, as well. The best time to post on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram is in the morning or early evening during the week, but a carefully crafted strategy can significantly speed up the process of gaining followers.
Best Times for Video
Posting video is an essential component of any social media strategy in 2021. Many website owners have found success in posting other people’s videos that have already gotten a big reaction. While this strategy can work and even garner a loyal following on social media, it has the built-in limitation of being unoriginal.
Most website publishers will not mind having an unoriginal Twitter account with thousands of followers, but for the few people who are looking for a social media strategy with some staying power, the best way to proceed might be video production and original content. That means you will need to know a little bit about the best time to post art on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. Whether you’re an artist or you commission other artists to produce content for your website and social media accounts, the best time to publish your video, images and other types of multimedia content depends on the context.
You’ll get a bigger reaction from your followers if you publish a highly relevant video than a video that was relevant months ago. Cultural relevance is easier for some people to determine than others. If you don’t have a good idea about what makes your audience excited, that’s okay. The world needs a lot of people to be consistent, reliable and productive. It would be in your best interest to work with a freelance contractor who understands popular culture and can help you craft your social media message.
FACTS: 90% of internet users say they watch video online at least once a month
60% of people say they’ve watched a video on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram in the last month.
Best Times for Images
Images are easier to produce than video. They take up less digital space, and they’re easier to consume than videos. They’re also better for the large portion of social media users who choose to disable automatic video playback in their account settings. A growing number of people primarily access Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram with mobile devices operating on battery power. Images require less of an investment in time and effort to view, and they can convey nearly as much information, with a little creativity and patience. For example:
(Image credit: Canva)
The best time to post on Twitter and other social media accounts is any time you are logged on and publishing content. Just about all of your posts should contain images, but you should take special care to find images that tell the right story for your social media campaign. Stock images and graphics could be okay if you can find pictures that convey the right kind of story. A lot of website owners have had success publishing popular meme images with captions although this strategy also requires creativity and a proper strategy.
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FAQ’s
According to HubSport, the very best times to post on your Twitter account are between eight and ten in the morning and six and nine in the evening. This coincides with the beginning and end of a normal working day for most people.
The best time to post on Twitter in the UK is usually during their lunch hour between 12 and one pm. And between four and six are the average engagement levels.
The first thing you should remember to do is to tweet frequently and at the optimal time of day. Next, remember most people like to see photos or videos. Use relevant hashtags and engage your followers with replies, retweets and tags.
Start by tweeting 5–20 times every day. If you’re shooting for more engagement, aim for 1-5 tweets per day. However, if you want more total responses to your tweets overall, 50 tweets is usually what that will take.
Don’t post only once or twice a month, however, you don’t want to be posting constantly either. Don’t leave you fans hanging or abuse hashtags. Don’t lengthen your posts just because you feel like it.
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