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Adding social media to your B2B marketing strategy is a smart move to make, but it’s also one that can bring up a lot of questions. “How do I post?” and “What do I post?” are two of the most common of those questions, but if you are really thinking in terms of strategy, then “WHEN do I post?” is probably next on the list. Figuring out when to time your social media posts for maximum effectiveness isn’t what you would call an exact science, because what may be the right time for a B2C sewing notions retailer may not be the right time for a B2B manufacturer of machine parts, but there are still some guidelines for the best times and days to do your posts to make sure they’re seen by the people you want to see them that are well worth testing for yourself.
Over at the HubSpot blog, they conducted some extensive research by examining over 100,000 social media accounts to determine “what timing and frequency resulted in the greatest outcome for social shares,” and they posted to their blog about some of the results today.
B2B Marketing Strategy: Social Media Timing
- Frequency? It’s common sense that you don’t want to post so often that you annoy any of your followers into the ground, causing them to promptly unfollow you and run for the hills, but you also can’t post so unfrequently that you can’t maintain a following or any interest. So what’s the best way to go about it? “Don’t crowd your content. HubSpot’s research found that companies that allow each shared link a buffer zone of at least an hour on either side see higher clickthrough rates overall,” says HubSpot, also noting that if you use their social media tool, it gives you a default buffer of 2 hours, just to be on the safe side. This doesn’t mean that you absolutely must post on the hour, every hour, though – only post that often if you’ve got enough unique, interesting content to talk about. Spamming the same tweet over and over again is not going to win you any points from your followers.
- Best Time of the Day & Week? Now you’ve got to figure out what time of day to post to your social media profiles. Early in the morning so that people can enjoy your tweets over their morning coffee? Late afternoon or early evening so that people can enjoy your Facebook posts on the subway home from work? According to HubSpot, the best time to post to Twitter is between 2 and 5 PM EST, and the best time to post to Facebook is on the weekend. It’s important to note that these suggested time guidelines are for general engagement – it’s also possible to drill down for leads, but you’ll need to use one of their tools for that one.
You can read the rest of their research, as well as some great information on calculating more specific numbers for your own unique company, over on the HubSpot blog.
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