The best time to post, and why the advice you've read is wrong
Universal 'best times' come from aggregated data about audiences that are not yours. Here's what to do instead.
Optional — the post reads fine without one.
Every guide quotes a best time to post — Tuesday at 10am, Thursday at 2pm. These come from aggregating enormous numbers of posts across every industry and timezone. The average is real; its relevance to your audience is not.
What actually determines timing
- ✓Where your audience is, which for most small accounts is one or two timezones rather than all of them
- ✓What they are doing when they open the app, which differs entirely between B2B and consumer
- ✓How fast the network's feed moves — a post on X has a much shorter half-life than one on LinkedIn or Pinterest
A method that costs nothing
Pick three times spread across the day. Post at all three for a few weeks. Look at which produces more engagement, over at least ten posts per slot — a single post tells you nothing, because reach on any individual post is extremely noisy.
Then keep the winner and stop thinking about it. Timing is worth a modest improvement, not the amount of attention it usually gets.
The thing that matters more
Posting at all, repeatedly, for longer than feels reasonable. An account posting three times a week at mediocre times will beat one posting perfectly timed once a month, every time.