Social media and what it takes to succeed can seem like a black box. Each platform has its own algorithm that it continually updates based on how users interact with content and their own internal goals. It’s imperative to know the best times to post on social media as a financial advisor so that you can reach clients and prospects.
And make no mistake, your audience is on social media. More than 9 in 10 internet users use social media each month with a typical user visiting over 7.5 different social platforms each month.
Social media algorithms prioritize content in a user’s feed based on how likely that person is to want to see the content; it takes into account prior behavior and individual characteristics. While these algorithms may not be perfect, financial advisors must consider them when crafting digital marketing strategies to drive more traffic, engagement, and followers.
In this article, we’ll look at each of the major social media platforms to help you determine when is the best time to post.
The Best Time to Post by Platform
The best time to post on Facebook
Facebook is the largest social media platform with just under 3 billion monthly active users with nearly 180 million in the United States. Even with the rise of other social media platforms, Facebook remains the most popular for older generations.
ContentCal recommends posting between 9 AM and 1 PM on weekdays, specifically Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. When sharing content on Facebook, you can position your posts to be favored by the algorithm by setting your posts to “public,” asking questions to inspire engagement and lengthy comments (these types of engagements are prioritized in the algorithm), and utilizing Facebook video.
The best time to post on Twitter
Twitter is one of the first places that people visit for news and updates. Twitter’s algorithm has a recency bias and users can control their feed settings to show Tweets chronologically, which makes it a great platform to consume timely events.
This makes Twitter very popular in the morning hours as users scroll through the Twitter feed to find what they need to know that day. Based on global Twitter usage, ContentCal recommends posting between 9 AM and 3 PM on Wednesdays and between 9 AM and 11 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The best time to post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn users are primarily business professionals, which causes its user base to be most active during working hours on weekdays. Likewise, LinkedIn sees a larger decline in users on the weekends vs. weekdays as compared to other platforms.
Sprout Social recommends posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9 AM and 12 PM or Wednesdays between 9 AM and 2 PM. LinkedIn content tends to have a longer shelf life than other platforms since there is a larger mix of post types (e.g. career updates, job posts, new company initiatives, blog posts, etc.).
The best time to post on Instagram
Instagram has several ways to share content: posts, stories, and reels. The platform favors high quality photos, graphic designs, and videos but that doesn’t mean that your content creation requires extensive production.
Nonetheless, there are a few important things to keep in mind when crafting your Instagram strategy: posts with clickbait don’t get recommended, contests and giveaways don’t get recommended, and repurposed content from another source without added value does not get recommended. Sprout Social recommends posting on Instagram on Tuesdays between 11 AM and 2 PM or any weekday at 11 AM based on global engagement.
Choosing times to post for your audience
While we’ve shared the best times to post based on global engagement, you will need to tailor when you post based on when your target audience is using each platform. For example, global engagement tends to be the lowest across all platforms on the weekend; however, you may find success posting at certain times on weekends if your audience is active.
To determine when you should be posting, you can utilize Google Analytics and Native Analytics for each platform to find when your audience is most active, where they are located, and what they are engaging with.
On Google Analytics you can navigate to Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals to see which channels and URLs are driving traffic to your website. You can also log into each platform to see data about page views, reach, and engagement rate.
Social media usage continues to rise, so it’s not only an important lever to utilize but also a necessary tactic to incorporate in your prospecting and client communication.
