I often get the question when should post on different channels? Recently posted on Quicksprout`s blog was an infographic about best times to post on different social media platforms. One first must understand that this is large data quantities analyzed to only pick out the best times for different variables no matter who or what, it only comes back to when based on the average.
This can be hugely miss leading and usually also widely followed. So from, let us say approximately 2-3 months, these times will be attacked by post wars and heavily used by plenty clogging up the news feeds and puncturing this very infographic back to the hole it belongs! So what ever you do, don´t follow these times ;)!
The question of when to post solidly returns to; who are you aiming to reach and with what message and format? These are question that only few can give a straight forward answer to and it´s by long learned experience about their own target groups. A community manager that been on postition for a long time, like Dennis Engkvist was on Rebtel, he knew his audience and fans by heart (he now moved on). He could probably give some hints of when to post towards them!
To understand and analyze target groups patterns and then post accordingly is one way to go about it. A general example could be parent to small children should have returned to their partner (read mobile) by 8-9pm. It´s just a qualified guess nevertheless! Better is to A-B-test frequently in your social media platforms that you use with copy, pictures, videos and time and learn from your own results, I would say thats the only way to do it!
People are living breathing and wonderful creatures. Some are more predictable than others. Some join tribes and gather around movies, full moons, memes, activities and much more. Others lurk in the dark. Learn from their behaviors and A-B test! Maybe this infographic will give you great results and maybe it won´t, but for the most of us, and especially in a couple of months time it won´t! And by trusting this you will get even further away from understanding who you are communicating to and building a relationship with in social media. In the end it will be a lose-lose.
