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When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 6, 2022

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms? Timing, as you might expect, is everything when it comes to posting on social media platforms. After all, if you, say, tweet when your audience is sleeping, they won’t see your tweet. It’ll be lost in the mountain of missed social media communications.

We all have such a mountain of missed communications and connections. Social media just moves way too quickly for us to see, comment on, share, and experience everything. We’re only human, and of course that’s fine. Your mission, though, is to post when your audience will be around, not when they’ll be offline, or busy with work, or settled into bed for the night.

Note: this information is from a few years ago. Yet a lot of it is still valid.

Zzzz AKA La La La I Can’t Hear You!

According to Kate Rinsema of AllTop (Guy Kawasaki‘s great site), the following are the most godawful worst times to post.

  • Facebook – midnight to 8 AM
  • Google+ – 6 PM to 8 AM
  • Instagram – midnight to 8 AM
  • LinkedIn – 9 AM to 5 PM
  • Pinterest – 1 to 7 AM and 5 – 7 PM
  • Tumblr – 12 AM to 12 PM
  • Twitter – 8 PM – 8 AM

But pay attention to your audience. Maybe they’re night owls. Maybe they live on the other side of the planet.

I’m Here and I’m Listening

These are reportedly the best times to post on social media platforms:

  • Facebook – 1 to 4 PM
  • Google+ – 9 AM to 11 AM
  • Instagram – 5 PM to 6 PM
  • LinkedIn – 5 PM to 6 PM
  • Pinterest – 8 PM to 11 PM
  • Tumblr – 7 PM to 10 PM
  • Twitter – 1 PM to 3 PM

What About Social Media Platforms and Different Time Zones?

Articles like this often vex me, because there usually isn’t any consideration taken when it comes to customers, readers, and audience crossing time zones.

My suggestion is to take these times as your own, for your own time zone, unless your audience is on the other side of the Earth.

Try for some wiggle room, e. g. if you’re on the East Coast of the United States, like I am, you might want to time things for later during the window if you’re aiming for an audience pretty much only in America. But for a European audience, you should aim for earlier in the window but recognize that, with a minimal five-hour difference, you might not hit the window perfectly.

Or, you could set at least your tweets to run more than once. If you do this, though, I suggest spreading them apart by a day, say, posting post #1 on Monday at the start of the window, and post #2 at the end, and then switching them on Wednesday or the like.  But repeating other postings could turn out to be overkill for your audience. Try using the #ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) tag when repeating your posts.

Or, it could be fine. We all know that we miss scads and scads of stuff online. Maybe your followers will be fine with a little repetition. Hell, many of them probably won’t even notice it.

Caveat marketer.

Published inSocial Media