When Should You Post on LinkedIn?

No matter what you are doing, doing it at the right time is really important. You don’t want to be too late or even too early! Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to posting on social media.?

In this post, we will explore the best time to post on LinkedIn, the best day to post on LinkedIn, at what frequency you should post on LinkedIn and everything else that will help improve your reach on LinkedIn.?

The Time Zones

Before we get into the timings, we need to take care of one other aspect-time zones.?

Keeping the time zones in mind is important. It might be that for you, it’s the right time to post, but for your target audience, it isn’t. For example, if you live in India and your target audience is in the US, you will face a huge time gap. You could be posting at the right time according to the time in India, but that isn’t going to help. Your audience is in the US, and they are far behind in terms of time.?

So, whenever you post, keep your audience’s time zones in mind and post when it is the right time for them, not for you.?

Now, you might be thinking, what if I have an audience in different countries? Then which time zone should I follow??

Well, this is where it gets a little tricky. You have two options here. You can either experiment and determine what timings get you the most engagement and stick to that. Or you can post more frequently, with each post catering to different niches.?

Whatever way you choose, do not start posting when it’s convenient for you. In marketing, your customers’ convenience, needs, and wants come first, and your strategy should be built with this in mind.?

The Best Time

So, you have considered the time zones. Now, when should you post??

From this chart from SproutSocial, we can see that the best time to post is 8am to 4pm. The best day to post is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.?

Image Source: @Sproutsocial

Now, this chart doesn’t give us precise data. We don’t know the range of engagement for high and low. So, here’s a trick. Post a little before your target audience is about to go to lunch. Since the best days are in the middle of the week, the lunch timings will be within the best time to post. Also, during the week, your prospects probably won’t have time to check their LinkedIn account except during lunch. Most of the day, they are working, and by night they are tired.?

Why The Middle of The Week, Though?

By now, you are probably wondering, why is the middle of the week the best time to post??

Here’s the thing, and I am sure you have faced this too. On Mondays, the week starts, and you most probably get new projects to begin working on. Now, this is bound to make anyone busy. Friday is the end of the week, and that’s usually by when people have to submit their finished work. So, Friday’s out of the picture cause people are going to be busy then too. On the weekends, people want to relax and take a break from thinking about their careers.?

After eliminating these days, we are only left with the middle of the week, and the data supports this. Now, if you look at the heat map more closely, you will notice that engagements on Tuesdays are a little more than on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This also makes sense cause people have the whole week left to complete their work. But from Wednesday, they need to speed up a little. On Thursdays, they have even less time to spend on social media.?

So, if you want to post on LinkedIn, stick to the middle of the week. Only post on Monday or Friday if it’s an emergency. And if you have to post on weekends, we suggest you use some other platform.?

Okay, So How Many Times Do I Post?

Three. You should post exactly three times a week on LinkedIn. Here’s why.

If you are running a campaign, you don’t want to be seen as pushy. So, you shouldn’t follow up until the next week.?

Now, everyone in your audience won’t be active at the same time. So, posting content for the same campaign multiple times will ensure you reach everyone at least once. But how many is multiple? Three has turned out to be the optimum number of posts for LinkedIn.?

Three to Five posts ensure that you show up in people’s feeds but don’t show up so often that people get sick of seeing your content.?

By the end of the week, your target audience will have seen your posts, and you can follow up on that campaign.?

The Type of Content Matters More

While 5 seems to be the perfect number of times you should post, it might not work for everyone. You might need to post more times based on what your audience likes, and that’s not a problem at all.

But, if you are going to increase your frequency, you need to also mix up the type of content you are posting. You can’t just keep making a text post, or put slides, use photos etc. That will get boring. You need to post different types of content to keep your audience engaged, no matter how many times you post in a week.?

When Should You Not Post?

If there is a time a perfect time to post, there is also a time to not post.?

LinkedIn is a professional social media platform. People don’t come here to pass the time or have fun. They usually have the goal of making new connections and growing their career prospects.?

While this is important, nobody wants to focus on their career all the time. Sometimes all we need is a break. And if you post during this break time, you are not going to drive engagement.?

This is not only going to waste your time and effort but might also turn some people away.?

If your audience is in a different time zone, then use a scheduler, but don’t post at the wrong time.?

What About LinkedIn Pods?

LinkedIn pods are a great way to drive engagement and make your content go viral. But posting on LinkedIn pods also requires you to be on time. That makes sense because pods are also made up of people, and people will be more or less active during different times of the day.?

Now, for each pod, you need to figure out the best time to post yourself. Try to find out the time zone most people in the pod are in. You can either simply ask about this or pay attention to the happenings in the pod.?

When you know the time most people are active at, you can not only improve your post’s engagement but also find other helpful posts that others have posted. This will help you and them.?

Takeaways

When it comes to driving engagement on social media, timing is one of the most important factors. To get the best results, you need to time your posts right. It will not only ensure higher engagement but also make sure that the time, resources, and effort you spent developing the campaign don’t go to waste.?

So, use timings to work in your favour, be efficient, and drive engagement!