When IS the best time to update your Facebook page?

Because we look after Facebook pages for brands 24/7, 365 days of the year, we’re often asked “When is the best time to update your Facebook page?”

It’s a great question. A cleverly timed Facebook update can mean the difference between posting in isolation or getting a huge range of interactions and ‘Likes’ to your page.

So here’s some pointers if you’re looking at maximising your Facebook page.

Should you update Facebook in the morning or the evening?

Facebook’s own internal analysis of the biggest media pages showed two things:

You should post around 9am and/or 8pm to receive higher engagement as that’s the time most people are logged in to Facebook
You could also try posting late at night to get higher feedback rates when ‘Night Owls’ are logged in but there’s less status updates clogging up News Feeds

Similar Facebook analysis from Vitrue in 2010 varied slightly showing there are three usage spikes throughout the day 11am, 3pm, and 8pm – of all of these 3pm was the biggest spike of the day. HOWEVER, as Facebook recommend, they found that posting at this time meant your status update could got lost in the noise concluding:

Morning posts are 39.7% more effective in terms of user engagement

The Vitrue study went even further discovering that:

The ‘Top of the hour’ (:00 to :15 minutes) sees more interaction than at other times
The second most popular time for interaction was :30 to :45 minutes past the hour

Mashable pointed out “This makes sense if you think about how meetings and breaks are scheduled. A quick check on Facebook before heading into another meeting or task might be more likely to happen at the top of an hour than in the middle or toward the end.”

Which day of the week is best to post on Facebook?

Vitrue’s study found that Facebook usage was consistent across weekdays peaking consistently on Wednesdays. But again, remember that you’re looking for the best time to post to be seen and to encourage engagement.

Dan Zarella’s Facebook analysis found:

Articles published on the weekend are shared on Facebook more

Suggested reasons behind this was the number of organisations blocking Facebook usage during the work day. Adam Ostrow noted on Mashable that:

“65% of Facebook users only access the site when they’re not at work or school – typically meaning early morning or evening. That means that if you’re making social media only a part of a 9 to 5 work day, you might be missing out on connecting with consumers during the times they’re likely to be online.”

When is your target audience not on Facebook?

Blue Rubicon’s gave some smart advice during our Facebook Page Management event last year:

Think about what people are doing in the real world

For example, if your target audience is young people, a lot of them are out on a Saturday night. Considering this, Blue Rubicon experimented with one brand page by posting on Sunday morning when they anticipated young users might be logging back on again to upload and share photos and comments about ‘the night before.’

Likewise if you’re trying to target stay-at-home parents then 3pm (when it’s time to pick up children from school and nursery) could be a terrible time to update your Facebook page. Consider the ‘8pm user’, a parent, who logs on at the end of the day when the kids are fed, in bed, and it’s leisure time.

Ignore everything above

Alternatively, just ignore everything above. The key to updating your Facebook page is visibility (via distribution, appearing in news feeds) and engagement (people liking, sharing, interacting with your posts).

The one thing studies like these do is make people think there’s a one-size-fits-all magic formula – also rushing to target them thereby shifting the best times to update your Facebook page.

You’ll probably need to experiment across all hours of the day, night, week, month to find out what’s best for your brand.

The below is an example from Twitter but really shows the difference between audiences. They are suggested ‘best times to tweet’ analysis from Social Media marketing tool Crowdbooster.

Based on the analysis you can see the first Twitter account “Darika” gets best results tweeting at 12pm but the Twitter account “TemperoUK” has greater traction tweeting at 9am.

What’s amazing? I tweet from both these accounts (not all tweets from TemperoUK are me, the account is shared across the company). Same person + different audience = different results

I guess at the end of the day it’s all about your community and their own unique behaviours.

Summary

You should post around 9am and/or 8pm to receive higher engagement as that’s the time most people are logged in to Facebook
You could also try posting late at night to get higher feedback rates when ‘Night Owls’ are logged in but there’s less status updates clogging up News Feeds
Morning posts are 39.7% more effective in terms of user engagement
The ‘Top of the hour’ (:00 to :15 minutes) sees more interaction than at other times
The second most popular time for interaction was :30 to :45 minutes past the hour
Articles published on the weekend are shared on Facebook more
Think about what people are doing in the real world
experiment across all hours of the day, night, week, month to find out what’s best for your brand