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Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic)

BY DANE ATKINSON | March 31, 2014 | 71 Comments | Clip it

Image credit: Jeff Cutler via Flickr

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Almost every small business, 81 percent, is on social media, and 94 percent of them use these social platforms for marketing purposes (attracting clients and building a brand), according to research from LinkedIn. As social media usage becomes ubiquitous, the rate will only continue to grow, as more small businesses use Facebook pages and Twitter as their main platforms for communication, even more so than their websites. Related: What Day of The Week Will Your Company Be Mentioned Most? (Infographic) The LinkedIn study and SumAll data further find social medias importance to hyper growth companies (those with significant year-over-year growth). Ninety one percent of these firms said social media grew awareness, and nearly three quarters grew their social media budgets in the past year. The small businesses using social platforms must be doing something right. Once small businesses are on social media they need to then figure out how to leverage each platform to meet their goals. These types of companies dont have the luxury of spending too much time on any facet of their business. Small businesses want to be sure their content is engaging and impactful, and will have legs throughout the network in terms of additional sharing. What many small business owners and managers overlook is the when of social media posting, not just the what, where and why. Having the right content is great, but knowing the time of day when people are most receptive to posts is invaluable for companies that need to run efficient campaigns. SumAll.com is a startup firm that provides data analytics for companies ranging from small businesses to large enterprise-level players such as Starbucks and Pandora. The company analyzed large amounts of customer data to determine the most opportune times to send out

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posts to various platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest and Google. The best time metric was calculated for each social media platform by measuring the responses on hundreds of millions of different posts, representing companies in various industry verticals. The measured responses were likes, comments, reposts and other similar activities that represent a specific action taken by the recipient. Related: Contrary to Popular Belief, These Popular Social-Media Habits Are Bad for Your Brand The SumAll.com research found the platform-specific times illustrated in the below infographic were generally optimal for sending posts. Some thoughts on the likely reasons for the popularity of the specific timeframes will follow.

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Twitter: People have a chance to share their own thoughts or retweet in the afternoon. Facebook: The work day is slowing down and people have more time to do a Facebook check. Tumblr: Reading micro-blogs on Tumblr takes more time and thought than other platforms, so non-work hours are often ideal. Pinterest: Weekends are best, as the craft and collection emphasis of Pinterest lends itself to weekend projects. A common trend with the optimal times is you want to catch people during their downtime. You

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during lunch or in the evenings.

Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic) | Entrepreneur.com

might need to get them early in the morning during their commute or settling in time at work,

Small businesses should try to follow these times but also need to understand the timing may be different for their specific customer base or industry. If they are trying to reach college students, the normal 9 to 5 workday doesnt apply. Experimentation is still recommended, and small businesses can use various tools to automate the sending of posts and tweets at various times throughout the day and over the weekend. Related: 5 Social Media Tricks to Boost Your Business Dane Atkinson
Follow @daneatkinson

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Dane Atkinson is chief executive officer of SumAll, a forward-thinking, socially-conscious company focused on harnessing the full power of real-time business intelligence for marketers. Based in New York City, Atkinson is a serial entrepreneur, having built nearly a dozen tech companies. He is a mentor in the New York TechStars program and a serves as an advisor to several technology firms.

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Jefferson Akly great info

1 hour ago

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Mukund Tiwari

from Facebook

2 hours ago

The scene in india is very different!!

Like Reply

Nick West from Facebook Krystal Williams

2 hours ago

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Thuria A from Facebook Jumana A.K

3 hours ago

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Nick Fleming

from Facebook

3 hours ago

Kasia McNaught
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Simon Shehata

from Facebook

4 hours ago

Maybe for publishers. The rest of the brands won't get on your news feed no matter the time. I only get publisher posts.
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Event Management Campus from Facebook But it depends on your business isn't it?

6 hours ago

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hamishniven

6 hours ago

The little caveat "depends on your target market" makes this article pretty null and void, but you gotta start somewhere.
Like Reply

Sanjay Ab

from Facebook

6 hours ago

timing is only a co factor...

Like Reply

from Facebook

7 hours ago

Friday Evenings Best for Latin-America / Asia Early Morning , Europe is being check.
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Matt Smith

from Facebook

7 hours ago

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4/1/2014

Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic) | Entrepreneur.com
Wayne Burton would probably find this interesting. ...
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from Facebook

7 hours ago

Global Lines aims to a Global audience is a real challenge to focus postings to multiple time zones.
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Christopher Soundlord Jonas Stolze

from Facebook

7 hours ago

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Dng Kul

from Facebook

7 hours ago

webstite collected so many English lessons or quality http://english10.net/

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Juantray Easmon

from Facebook

7 hours ago

That explains a lot lol.

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Carlos Lopez

from Facebook

7 hours ago

Thanks for the clarification, Entrepreneur.

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Willy AF S

from Facebook

7 hours ago

Ana Mendez
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Eric Garcia

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8 hours ago

David V. Mares Chris Garcia

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Entrepreneur

from Facebook

8 hours ago

Thanks for commenting, Socialgeek. This study was based on a general pool of data, but the author did note that results may vary based on your audience and time zones. If your research has found some interesting data, you should pitch our editors. --rv
Like Reply

Entrepreneur

from Facebook

8 hours ago

You're right, Amy King. The article also mentions that depending on your industry and time zone, your experiments may find a different trend. --rv
Like Reply

Entrepreneur

from Facebook

8 hours ago

Thanks for asking, Carlos Lopez. We have a global audience, so throughout the day we bring inspired entrepreneurs stories to read. Also, even though it's the best time to post for engagement, doesn't mean it's the only time to post. As we're sure you read in the article, times and strategy may vary for different time zones and industries, and you should experiment to see what's best for your customers. Ultimately, do what's right for your business. --rv
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4/1/2014
Tori Zeidler
from Facebook

Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic) | Entrepreneur.com
8 hours ago

Joshua Gott this is what I was talking about !

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Alyssa Jariol

from Facebook

8 hours ago

Paul Nikolai Cario Pinongcos for your future posts!

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Carlos Dos Santos from Facebook American, european,asian time?

8 hours ago

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Alec Brodie

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9 hours ago

Dustin Thomas Hardy

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Dan Lamberton

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Jennifer Tracy Michael Kathleen Lance Aimee Borders

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Diana Morales Castao Mira Karla Alvarez

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10 hours ago

Angela Sarah Cindy

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Aly Quah

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10 hours ago

Charice Quah
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Deepanshu Budhija

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10 hours ago

Paras Jairath Bandna Bhalla : See if you get some new idea.
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Luis Prez

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10 hours ago

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Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic) | Entrepreneur.com
Does really exists time on Internet? I don't think so.
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Austen Elam Chasity Elam

from Facebook

10 hours ago

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Janelle Clancy from Facebook Jodie :)

11 hours ago

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Shameel Thawerbhoy from Facebook Arvind Venkataraman

11 hours ago

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Tajae Pryce

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11 hours ago

Devan Brent Gallimore kitten me right meow

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Ingrid Lopez

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11 hours ago

Mira Ana Rodriguez Vazquez

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Vuong Pham

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11 hours ago

Nhat Duc Nguyen Vu Tung Lam

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Michael Richardson

from Facebook

12 hours ago

Doesn't matter what time you post now on Facebook as a business since they won't show it anyways (to only ~2% of your audience) unless you pay to promote posts. RIP SMM's.
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Barry Melcher Meow

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12 hours ago

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Cristina Santa Maria Carlos Camuas

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Declan Read Rhys Burns

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Vinnie Egan Madison Blue

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12 hours ago

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Socialgeek from Facebook

12 hours ago

ACTUALLY, it depends entirely on your target audience demographic. This is complete

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hooey.

Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms (Infographic) | Entrepreneur.com

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John Woll

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12 hours ago

Pakapol Laosri
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Chandra Holt from Facebook Trenton Erker what about Instagram?!??

12 hours ago

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Trenton Erker Chandra Holt

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Elizabeth Pingeon Sarah Kouliavtsev

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