Building Your Social Media Strategy: Part 3 - Where and When to Post

By now you know who you want to reach and have your S.M.A.R.T. objectives ready in order to support your strategy. Now, it’s time to deliver on your strategy by posting your content strategically. 

When it comes to putting your content into the world, there are two important factors to consider: WHERE to post, and WHEN.

Where is the best place to post on social media?

This isn’t such an easy question to answer. This totally depends on your brand, target audience, and content. Ask yourself these questions before signing up for them all:

• Where is your brand persona hanging out?

• On which social platforms are they engaging the most?

• What sort of content works best for your brand?

One of the problems I see as a Social Media Strategist is clients, who know very little about social media marketing, signing up for all of the platforms. They think they need to be everywhere in order to be seen. With this usually comes with the feeling of being overwhelmed and eventually not having enough time to dedicate to all of these accounts.

Instead, pay attention to your strategy. 

If it works best for your brand to post relative industry news, then LinkedIn may be one of the best options for you. If you’re looking to engage with your audience through giveaways or promotions, Instagram is fantastic. Maybe you’re a food blogger who wants to increase web traffic. Get your butt on Pinterest ASAP!

There’s a solution and platform for every type of industry and market.

When is the best time to post on social media?

Here’s the short answer: there isn’t one.

There are a couple factors involved when it comes to your audience interacting with your social media posts:

Time Zone

Whether your brand reaches far and wide or only in one small town, pay attention when scheduling posts for all applicable time zones. You wouldn’t want to promote a giveaway at 12:00pm your time, but your audience is beginning to fall asleep in their time zone. You wouldn’t be maximizing its potential.

This is when scheduling platforms come in real handy. Set your accounts up on platforms such as Hootsuite, Buffer, Later, Tailwind, etc. They make it easy to set it and forget it, no matter the time zone.

B2B vs B2C Audiences

Business to Business and Business to Customer social strategies will vary greatly. 

A B2B audience is more likely to pay attention to social media during the early morning, lunch time, and late afternoon/early evening. 

B2C is a little more flexible. It may be smart to post multiple times per day to properly reach your audience.

Learning when your audience is most responsive to your content will take a period of testing. Pay attention to analytics, such as Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights, Twitter Analytics, etc. These will show you the specific times your audience is active on your channels and with your content.

It’s our last week next week! We’ll be reviewing how to AUDIT your social media accounts and content to achieve better results.