The best times for you to post to facebook and twitter.

As marketers, we need to know the best ways to reach the most people. I'm a big fan of taking stats and analizing them, so that is the subject we're on today. I've already talked about twitter, facebook, triberr and other subjects. Today we are going to talk about the best times to post to twitter and facebook. This means the best times of the day and the best days of the week.

In doing my research I've found conflicting statistics and reports on the best time and day to post on twitter. In my experience, the best days are Monday through Thursday. Here's an article that backs me up on this from Ragan's PR Daily.  The article shows that the most "click-throughs" happen Monday through Thursday around noon. Less specifically between 9a.m. and 3p.m.

Why are these times so popular?

My guess is that people start taking their mid-morning breaks and their lunch breaks during this time of day. Logically, people are still hanging on to their weekends on Mondays and also catching up on things they may have missed over the weekend. The early time of day id most likely due to procrastination. Things seem to get put off til later in the day and that's why the later hours are filled with actual work and checking off items on the to-do list.

Another reason?

Stay-at-home moms and dads don't have too much to do while their kids are in school, so they enjoy a little "me time."

Why are weekends dead on twitter?

Well, I'm not entirely sure myself, but I theorize that people are bust enjoying life. They go to events, birthday parties and go shopping in REAL stores. That's a good thing! It gives you time to come up with content to post during the week and time to enjoy life yourself!

One feature I love about Hootsuite is their new auto-schedule button. This tweets your message at the opportune time. It automatically calculates the next time a spike in twitter visitors will occur by using data from the past.



On to facebook posting. Facebook is apparently another story. Some unexpected reports show that facebook has differences and similarities to twitter. Here's an article that may help you with facebook. There are a few twitter stats too, so be sure to take note of them in this article from FaceItPages.

The infographic shows us that facebook thrives on weekends--particularly Saturday. It also shows that shares spike around noon and seven. It also claims that one post every other day will garner the most page likes. I'm not sure about this particular stat, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

Basically, the facebook crowd grows during lunch on weekdays and in the afternoon on Saturdays. Keep these times in mind when you are posting, and you'll do great!!

So there you have it. The best times to post and tweet. Come back on Friday for headline tips for blog posts.