While there is no rule set in stone about what times you should be posting on your social media sites, there are certain times that sites like Facebook and Twitter have what’s known as peak usage. The statistics found at Kissmetrics (http://blog.kissmetrics.com/science-of-social-timing-1/) give a better idea of when people are actively engaged on Twitter and Facebook and what these active peak times are. According to those statistics:

• 48% of the US population that is on Twitter is on the Eastern Time Zone
• Retweets are done mostly at 5pm on Wednesdays
• The most likes on Facebook are done on Saturdays at Noon (Eastern)

Just because that’s what those statistics show doesn’t necessarily mean those will be the best times for you to post and be active on social media. However, you may find that if you test out their theory on peak usage times and post your content then that you may get great results. It doesn’t hurt to try!

Another theory by Dan Zarella of Hubspot is that instead of posting at the peak times, post at off peak times. This could also be a good theory to test out. If you’re posting at off peak times your content might have a better chance of being seen, liked, retweeted, shared, etc because it won’t get lost in the shuffle like it would if you post during peak times when everyone else is also posting.

Basically though, social media posting at the ‘right times’ is going to boil down to when your audience is most active. In order to find this out you’ll have to pay attention to your stats and see when you get the most interaction from your audience. If you’re a night owl and like to stay up until all hours of the night and this is when you’re sharing the most content, if your audience sleeps during these hours you’re probably going to find you’re reaching a much smaller portion of your audience.

While automation is a good thing, it’s not always the best way to go when it comes to sharing your content and engaging with your audience on social media. Obviously if you’re automating your methods like prescheduling Tweets with Hoot Suite or Facebook posts with their new feature (on business pages) that allows you to plan your content, you’re not there ‘in person’ to reply to comments or questions people may have at that time (when the content is posted). The best practice is to schedule a time daily you can be present on social media to share your content and engage with your audience.

Now that you’ve seen some statistics and heard a few theories about the right times to post on your social media sites, it’s time to test and see what gives you the best results. Because remember, the ‘right times’ are when your audience is most active.