In this post, we’ve put together a quick guide breaking down how to make the most of Twitter’s advanced search features. This will help you better narrow down the most relevant interactions for your brand.

Read on to find out what Twitter advanced search is and how to use it strategically for your brand.

Table of contents

• What is Twitter advanced search?
• How to access Twitter advanced search
• How to use Twitter advanced search
• Twitter advanced search commands and operators
• 7 impactful ways to use Twitter advanced search
• How to use Sprout Social to enhance your Twitter searches

What is Twitter advanced search?

Twitter advanced search is a tool that lets you tailor your search results based on a number of filters. This makes it easier to find Tweets that are highly specific and relevant to your needs. So you can gain valuable insights to maximize the benefits of Twitter for your brand.

This Twitter search feature lets you search for Tweets containing specific words, hashtags and phrases. You can even exclude keywords or search Tweets from specific accounts. The feature further lets you filter results by number of engagements, date ranges and other filters.

How to access Twitter advanced search

Twitter advanced search on desktop

There are two ways to access the Twitter advanced search tool via desktop.

• The first option is to directly access it from https://twitter.com/search-advanced.
• The second option is to first conduct a search using the regular Twitter search feature. Then click on the three-dot button next to the search bar and select “Advanced search.”

Twitter advanced search on mobile

Mobile users can access the advanced search tool through their mobile browser. Just like on desktop, there are two ways to access Twitter advanced search on mobile.

• The first option is to open your mobile browser and directly go to https://mobile.twitter.com/search-advanced.
• The second option is to first conduct a regular Twitter search from your mobile browser. Then click on the three-dot button next to the search bar and select “Advanced search.”

How to use Twitter advanced search

The advanced search tool offers plenty of ways to refine your search results. This helps you discover specific Tweets and conversations to make the most of Twitter for your business. Here’s a quick look at how to search on Twitter using the advanced search tool.

Searching for specific words, phrases and hashtags

• All of these words – Provide two or more words and search for Tweets containing all those terms in no specific order.
• This exact phrase – Search for Tweets matching the exact phrase. You can use this to look for Tweets containing names, quotes and precise terminologies.
• Any of these words – Provide two or more words and search for Tweets containing any of those terms. For example, a search for “coffee beans” may show Tweets containing only “coffee” or only “beans.”
• None of these words – Exclude Tweets containing certain words. This is great for filtering irrelevant Tweets from your search results.
• These hashtags – Look for Tweets containing specific hashtags.
• Language – Filter your search results to find only those Tweets written in a specific language.

Searching for users or accounts

• From these accounts – Search for Tweets coming from specific accounts. If you use this alongside the word search, you could even look for Tweets containing certain words sent from those accounts. So, for example, you could search for Tweets by @twitter containing the phrase “customer support.”
• To these accounts – Search for Tweets sent to specific accounts. This would include Tweets sent in reply to those accounts.
• Mentioning these accounts – Look for Tweets mentioning certain accounts.

Combining these search options will help you easily find conversations between different accounts. For example, you’d be able to look for Tweets from Wendy’s to Chipotle or vice versa.

Searching for Tweets by date

Advanced search gives you the option to look for Tweets sent out within a specific date range. You can narrow your search by year, month and date.

Searching based on engagement

One useful feature is the ability to filter search results by engagement. You can look for Tweets containing at least X number of replies, X number of likes and X number of Retweets.

Using search filters

Advanced search further lets you narrow your results based on several filters. You can choose to exclude or include replies. Or you can choose to only show replies and exclude original Tweets.

Similarly, you can choose to include Tweets with links or only show Tweets with links.

Twitter advanced search commands and operators

Besides the advanced search tool, Twitter offers a few additional resources to refine your search. Make the most of its standard search operators to perform advanced searches on the platform.

These search operators work similarly to Twitter’s advanced search. The main difference is you can enter them directly into the normal search function.

For example, let’s say you’re planning a Disney vacation and have a family member with dietary restrictions. Maybe you want to see the Twitterverse’s experiences with Disney’s dining options. So you search “Disney” and “allergy” (in quotations, separately) to score some real-time information and feedback.

There are a number of Twitter search operators and queries out there. And brands can use them for everything from customer service to competitive research. Whether you use these operators in the standard search field or the advanced search UI comes down to your preferences. If you’d like a handy reminder of your options for Twitter search operators, check out the cheat sheet below.

Image Source: Twitter

7 impactful ways to use Twitter advanced search

According to the latest Twitter stats, 15% of users turn to the platform for customer service. Meanwhile, 32% of brands are using it to deliver customer service. So there’s a huge opportunity for brands to use Twitter advanced search for ramping up their customer service efforts.

But that’s not all. Check out these seven impactful ways to use advanced search on Twitter.

1. Zero in on customer questions and concerns

Twitter is the go-to channel for customer support. And using the right search queries can help you prioritize your fans’ issues.

Perform advanced searches including your @account and terms such as “help,” “support” and “service.” This can help clue you in on anyone having a problem. Additionally, you can tack on a question mark (“?”) to that query to spot anyone who has a question for you.

2. Find ideas for content

Twitter is a hub for trending conversations. People go to the platform to talk about trending topics and discuss important events. These conversations can show you what your audience is talking about and what they’re interested in. Based on these interests, you can then understand what types of content will resonate with them.

As such, Twitter serves as a valuable source of inspiration for content–whether it’s your next blog post or live broadcast.

Use Twitter advanced search to see what people are saying about a specific topic. Then use those conversations to get a sense of what they’re interested in. For example, you might find that people are talking about sustainable coffee. You could then put together a blog post discussing the topic to educate your audience.

3. Find relevant industry influencers

Want to know who are the biggest players in your industry? Or whose content is totally killin’ it?

Searching by engagement parameters can help you do just that.

This would involve filtering search results to narrow down Tweets with higher engagements. In general, influential users get more likes and Retweets compared to regular users. Performing this type of advanced search can help you zero in on users who are leading the conversation around certain topics.

4. Spot positive customer comments

Brands are rightfully concerned about their reputation with fans and followers. And the advanced search functionality is a great way to conduct Twitter listening and monitor brand reputation.

You can conduct a surface-level sentiment analysis by searching for positive keywords along with your brand name. Think “best,” “happy,” “excellent” and so on. You can even tack on emoticons such as “:)”.

These can reveal Tweets in which customers share positive experiences with your brand. So they give you the perfect opportunity to respond and engage and nurture your relationship with them.

5. Never miss another mention

Spoiler alert: not everyone talking about you online is taking the time to tag you.

Save a Twitter advanced query that includes your brand name, common misspellings and your website. This will give you a good start to monitoring social mentions more diligently. So you can send timely responses and prevent further disappointment.

Sleeping on such an interaction could be bad news for your business, especially if it’s a customer complaint on the line.

You’ll find the option to “save search” by clicking on the three-dot button next to the search window.

6. Monitor your competitors

Want to see what people are saying about the competition? Or how your competitors are responding to their customers?

Run an advanced search to look for Tweets mentioning your biggest competitors. Then analyze those Tweets to understand why people love (or hate) your competitors.

This could give you insights to strengthen your Twitter communications strategy. You can even use the insights to inform your larger marketing and promotion efforts.

Sprout Social’s Twitter analytics tools make it even easier to do a competitor analysis. You can do a side-by-side Twitter profile comparison to see how you stack up to your top competitors.

7. Identify your most popular Tweets

Curious to see which of your Tweets are resonating with your audience? Use Twitter’s advanced search to look for your Tweets with a certain number of likes and Retweets.

For example, you could search for Tweets with at least 50 likes and 20 Retweets.

How to use Sprout Social to enhance your Twitter searches

Twitter lets you run complex searches for @mentions, hashtags, keyword groups and exclusions. But there are more operators out there to narrow down the search even more.

This means that you need to have a strategy for not only figuring out relevant searches for your brand but also organizing them.

Sprout’s Twitter integration helps you streamline your searches and monitor relevant keywords in one place. Use it to set up keyword searches and identify relevant conversations for your brand. You can then keep track of all these conversations through a single Smart Inbox. From the same social inbox, you can engage with mentions and replies instead of having to switch platforms.

Using Twitter advanced search for advanced results

The Twitter advanced search feature allows you to uncover valuable conversations and insights for your brand. Make the most of the tips and ideas shared above to maximize the outcome of your Twitter strategy.

If you ever feel overwhelmed trying to make the platform work for you, don’t forget there are plenty of Twitter tools to make your job easier. Use them to your advantage and get more out of Twitter for your brand.

Use of Twitter nomenclature across Sprout refers to newly rebranded X platform and related terminology

The post How to use Twitter advanced search to get more leads for your brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

With more than 900 million members across 200 countries, businesses have a large audience and employee advocates to extend their reach. With the right LinkedIn marketing strategy, combined with these optimal posting times, you could see improved engagement.

Learn how to identify your best times to post globally on LinkedIn a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally, meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

• What are the best times to post on LinkedIn?
• What are the best times to post on LinkedIn by industry?
  • Consumer Goods
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Hospitality
  • Media
  • Nonprofit
  • Restaurants
  • Schools & Education
  • Travel & Tourism
• How to find your own best times to post on social media
• How Sprout gathered the data
• Find your best times to post with Sprout

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn

• Best times to post on LinkedIn Company Pages:
  • Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on LinkedIn Company Pages: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn Company Pages: Weekends

Unsurprising for this professional-focused social platform, LinkedIn engagement times are consistent with general business hours. High engagement hours are more concentrated midday and don’t extend too far out past the workday hours. You’re less likely to get eyes on your LinkedIn content on the weekend when engagement drops significantly.

Because LinkedIn content is centered around professional thought leadership and career growth, it makes sense that a majority of audiences engage with this content throughout their working day. By midday, there’s buzz on the platform, and the best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and noon.

Yes, LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused platform, but it’s more than a job board and networking platform. LinkedIn provides a platform for professional storytelling and advocacy, from both employees and employers alike. Contributors of all levels can share their subject-matter expertise, create conversations that challenge “business as usual,” and uplift professional voices around the world.

Businesses on LinkedIn are finding new ways to generate leads, find co-marketing partners, highlight company culture and attract talent. Because of these additional business opportunities LinkedIn provides, it makes sense that posting and engagement match with the business hours.

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn by Industry

There’s no definitive answer to what the best times to post on LinkedIn are, and we can only offer insight with the data we have. Industry is just one factor that plays into the success of your social posts. Consider as well as your target audience, business goals and the content itself.

Use this industry-level data to help inform your publishing calendar, and test your own optimal send times with social experiments.

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Consumer Goods

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Consumer Goods:
  • Mondays at 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Consumer Goods: Mondays and Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Consumer Goods: Saturdays and Sundays

The consumer goods industry covers a large portfolio of products, ranging from packaged food and beverages to clothing and accessories and everything in between. While the US was facing inflation at nearly 8.5%, US consumers spent 18% more in March 2022 than they did two years prior. After two years into the pandemic, consumers were ready to spend similar to their pre-pandemic habits and more in 2022.

For consumer goods businesses on LinkedIn, only very few days see any engagement. Based on our data, the best times to post on LinkedIn for consumer goods are Mondays at 11 a.m., and Mondays and Tuesdays as the best days to post. Be cautious if you’re a consumer goods business, but also be sure to test your own best times to post.

Consumer goods social media resources

• Solutions for Social Commerce
• How to master social media for retail and win more customers
• What is social commerce? Stats, examples & tips for your strategy
• Mobile commerce: what it is and why you should care

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Hospitals & Healthcare

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Hospitals & Healthcare:
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and at 6 p.m.
  • Wednesdays at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Hospitals & Healthcare: Tuesdays through Fridays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Hospitals & Healthcare: Sundays

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers have been put to work on social media the last few years, due to the pandemic. However, social media for healthcare is more than navigating healthcare crises. It’s about educating the public, helping patients feel more comfortable with healthcare visits and doctors’ appointments, promoting their programs for aspiring physicians and establishing themselves as pillars in the community.

Healthcare and hospitals on LinkedIn see consistent engagement nearly every single day starting at 7 a.m. seven days a week. However, the best times to post on LinkedIn for hospitals and healthcare are Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and at 6 p.m., as well as Wednesdays at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Consistent engagement can be seen Tuesdays through Fridays from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m.

Hospital and healthcare social media resources

• Social media and healthcare: how to keep patients engaged
• Why healthcare orgs should invest in social listening, stat
• Supporting HIPAA Compliance on social: a cheat sheet

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Hospitality

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Hospitality:
  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon and at 1 p.m.
  • Fridays at 4 p.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Hospitality: Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Hospitality: Sundays

As consumers crave some semblance of pre-pandemic life, ‘ businesses can also sense it. Hospitality businesses see higher engagement consistently throughout the day and into early evening hours during weekdays on LinkedIn.

The best times to post on LinkedIn for the hospitality industry are Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. and Fridays at 4 p.m. However, businesses see consistent engagement throughout the day from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

Hospitality social media resources

• Social media marketing tools for the travel industry
• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• When to create separate social media accounts for your multilocation business [Free Worksheet]

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Media

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Media:
  • Wednesdays at 11 a.m.
  • Thursdays at 9 a.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Media: Weekdays, especially Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Media: Sundays

The media and entertainment industry sees consistent engagement on LinkedIn. Media businesses should expect engagement from early weekday mornings through the afternoons. Major global events, political upheavals and business news have a relevant impact on media impressions on all networks, including LinkedIn. As a business and employment-focused social media platform, it makes sense that professionals come to engage in emerging news.

News travels quickly, and the best times to post on LinkedIn for the media and entertainment industry are Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and Thursdays at 9 a.m. However, posting between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. sees just as high engagement. Avoid posting on LinkedIn over the weekends, since there is limited engagement in this industry.

Media social media resources

• How to supercharge your media relations strategy with social
• How RADIO.COM used social listening to crown the #ArtistOfTheSummer
• Social media and journalism: how to effectively reach the public

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Nonprofit

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Nonprofit:
  • Wednesdays at noon
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Nonprofit: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Nonprofit: Saturday and Sundays

Our data for the best times to post on LinkedIn for nonprofits shows consistent engagement throughout the week during general business hours. The best times to post on LinkedIn for nonprofit organizations are Wednesdays at noon, but between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Fridays showing promising engagement as well.

However, even with the consistent audience engagement seen in the heatmap above, it’s important for nonprofits (and all businesses) to test their own best times to post. Whether it’s through social testing or using Sprout’s Optimal Send Times feature, find what times work best for your organization on LinkedIn.

Nonprofit social media resources

• Turning moments into momentum: How nonprofits can leverage #GivingTuesday year-round
• How this nonprofit institute boosts messaging reach with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social
• The ultimate social media for museums guide

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Restaurants

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Restaurants:
  • Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Restaurants: Tuesdays through Fridays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Restaurants: Saturdays and Sundays

In 2022, everyone was ready to get back to their pre-pandemic routines, and restaurants were ready with open doors. While online orders and delivery services may have become new offerings for some restaurant and bar locations, the desire to draw patrons has not. Target audience and platform goals factor into ways businesses connect with their customers. Many restaurant businesses used LinkedIn to promote job fairs, individual employment positions, as well as news articles highlighting their accolades.

Restaurants and bars on LinkedIn see decent engagement midday during the week between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. However, the peak engagement and best times to post on LinkedIn for restaurants and bars are Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Restaurant social media resources

• The complete guide to social media for restaurants & bars
• 5 tips from the man behind #Sprinklegate
• Auntie Anne’s SMM Bari’s TikTok Bootcamp [Webinar]

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Schools & Education

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Schools & Education:
  • Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
  • Fridays at 6 a.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Schools & Education: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Schools & Education: Saturday and Sundays

Universities, higher education institutions and schools didn’t see much engagement on LinkedIn compared to other social networks, despite there being 131,000 schools listed. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time.

Opportunities for engagement are sporadic during weekdays, and virtually nonexistent over the weekends. The best times to post on LinkedIn for education and schools are Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and Fridays at 6 a.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays see more engagement throughout the days, whereas Mondays and Fridays are relatively light.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for education needs to fulfill multiple functions. Are you looking to engage with students past, present and future? Are you looking to keep a pulse on sentiment and brand health?

Schools and education social media resources

• Choose wisely: Higher education marketers take on College Decision Day
• All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24%
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university
• LinkedIn for colleges: Best practices for higher education

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn for Travel & Tourism

• Best times to post on LinkedIn for Travel & Tourism:
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays at 10 a.m.
• Best days to post on LinkedIn for Travel & Tourism: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on LinkedIn for Travel & Tourism: Weekends

Travel and tourism industries appear to have maximized their engagement on LinkedIn. As many travel restrictions continued to be lifted and the semblance of “normal” crept back into many peoples’ lives, travel and tourism businesses saw an opportunity to capitalize on the suppressed desires to travel.

The best times to post on LinkedIn for travel and tourism businesses are Tuesdays from 9 a.m. until noon then again at 1 p.m., as well as on Fridays at 10 a.m. However, these businesses see solid engagement almost every weekday from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Travel and tourism social media resources

• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How to manage multiple social media accounts
• When to Create Separate Social Media Accounts for your Multilocation Business [Free Worksheet]

How to find your own best times to post on social media

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own social media data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active near the peak times we’ve outlined or hours earlier. If you use a LinkedIn analytics tool, it should contain a host of relevant data.

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your own analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your individual account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your own audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing the repeated analysis yourself and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media 2023
• Best times to post on Facebook 2023
• Best times to post on Instagram 2023
• Best times to post on TikTok 2023
• Best times to post on Twitter 2023

How Sprout gathered the data

We understand that these reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

Sprout Social’s Data Science team gathers this information by analyzing nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

Find your best time to post with Sprout

Now’s the time to test your content calendar. Are you posting when your followers are most active? Start your free trial of Sprout Social and discover the best times to post on social media today.

The post Best times to post on LinkedIn in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

It’s important to understand how posting on TikTok at the right times can be a huge benefit to your TikTok marketing strategy. Users on average spend 23.5 hours per month on the platform, meaning there is an opportunity to engage with a consistent audience. Keep an eye out for emerging trends or subcultures on the platform and test your own content.

Learn how to identify your best times to post globally on TikTok with a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally, meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

• What are the best times to post on TikTok?
• What are the best times to post on TikTok by industry?
  • Consumer Goods
  • Hospitality
  • Media
  • Nonprofit
  • Restaurants
  • Schools & Education
  • Travel & Tourism
• How to find your own best times to post on TikTok
• How Sprout gathered the data
• Find your best times to post with Sprout

Best Times to Post on TikTok

• Best times to post on TikTok:
  • Tuesdays from 2 to 6 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok: Sundays

As the youngest digital platform on this list, TikTok has grown significantly and made waves in half as many years as the others on this list. With the app now amassing over 1 billion active global users who spend nearly 20 hours on the app every month, TikTok has competitive staying power.

The best times to post on TikTok are Tuesdays from 2 to 6 p.m., Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m. and Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m. Afternoons are when the highest engagements are on the platform; users are looking to fill their afternoon entertainment boost. However, generally, mid-morning through the afternoon (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) on Tuesdays through Thursdays see higher engagement on the app.

With future market trends changing quickly, it’s important to understand how trends start, evolve and influence. Once you understand how these forces, moments or signals work, you can better create a TikTok trend strategy to implement rather than participating reactively.

Best Times to Post on TikTok by Industry

There’s no definitive answer to what the best times to post on TikTok are, and we can only offer insight with the data we have. Industry is just one factor that plays into the success of your social posts. Consider as well as your target audience, business goals and the content itself if you’re looking to get more views and engagement.

Use this industry level-data to help inform your publishing calendar, and test your own optimal send times with social experiments.

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Consumer Goods

• Best times to post on TikTok for Consumer Goods:
  • Tuesdays from 3 to 5 p.m.
  • Wednesdays at 3 p.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Consumer Goods: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Consumer Goods: Saturdays and Sundays

The consumer goods industry covers a large portfolio of products, ranging from packaged food and beverages to clothing and accessories and everything in between. While the US was facing inflation at nearly 8.5%, US consumers spent 18% more in March 2022 than they did two years prior. After two years into the pandemic, consumers were ready to spend similar to their pre-pandemic habits and more in 2022.

For consumer goods businesses on TikTok, only very few days see any engagement. Optimal engagement for consumer goods on TikTok is Tuesdays from 3 to 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 3 p.m.

Very few hours throughout the days see any engagement either. Be cautious if you’re a consumer goods business, but also be sure to test your own best times to post.

Consumer goods social media resources

• Solutions for Social Commerce
• How to master social media for retail and win more customers
• What is social commerce? Stats, examples & tips for your strategy
• Mobile commerce: what it is and why you should care

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Hospitality

• Best times to post on TikTok for Hospitality:
  • Thursdays at 2 p.m.
  • Fridays at 9 a.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Hospitality: Thursdays and Fridays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Hospitality: Wednesdays

As consumers crave some semblance of pre-pandemic life, businesses can also sense it. While hospitality businesses see higher engagement on other social platforms, there is limited concentrated engagement and optimal posting times on TikTok.

The best times to post on TikTok for the hospitality industry are Thursdays at 2 p.m. and Fridays at 9 a.m. There are moderately light engagements Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., which would still be ideal times to post. Essentially late evening hours when people were looking to engage with hospitality brands.

Hospitality social media resources

• Social media marketing tools for the travel industry
• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• When to create separate social media accounts for your multilocation business [Free Worksheet]

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Media

• Best times to post on TikTok for Media:
  • Mondays at 8 a.m.
  • Tuesdays from 5 to 9 a.m., 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 6 to 8 a.m.
  • Thursdays at 6 a.m. and from 8 to 11 a.m.
  • Fridays at 9 a.m.
  • Sundays from 6 to 8 a.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Media: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Media: Saturdays

Engagement in the media and entertainment industry peaks on TikTok. Media businesses can expect consistently high engagement nearly every day between 6 and 11 a.m. Major global events, political upheavals and business news have a relevant impact on media impressions on all platforms, including TikTok.

News travels quickly, and the best times to post on TikTok for the media and entertainment industry are Mondays at 8 a.m., Tuesdays from 5 to 9 a.m., Wednesdays from 6 to 8 a.m., Thursdays from 8 to 11 a.m., Fridays at 9 a.m., and Sundays from 6 to 8 a.m.

Media social media resources

• How to supercharge your media relations strategy with social
• How RADIO.COM used social listening to crown the #ArtistOfTheSummer
• Social media and journalism: how to effectively reach the public

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Nonprofit

• Best times to post on TikTok for Nonprofit:
  • Tuesdays from 3 to 5 p.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Nonprofit: Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Nonprofit: Saturdays and Sundays

Our data for the best times to post on TikTok for nonprofits shows concentrated engagement in midweek afternoons that can extend into the early evening hours.

The best times to post on TikTok for nonprofit organizations are Tuesdays from 3 to 5 p.m., however, there’s almost as much engagement three hours prior and after. Wednesdays see some near-peak engagement between 1 and 6 p.m.

However, even with the audience engagement seen in the heatmap above, all businesses need to test their own best times to post. Whether it’s through social testing or using Sprout’s Optimal Send Times feature, find what times work best for your organization on TikTok.

Nonprofit social media resources

• Turning moments into momentum: How nonprofits can leverage #GivingTuesday year-round
• How this nonprofit institute boosts messaging reach with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social
• The ultimate social media for museums guide
• How to make money on TikTok

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Restaurants

• Best times to post on TikTok for Restaurants:
  • Mondays at noon and 3 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
  • Thursdays at 4 p.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Restaurants: Mondays and Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Restaurants: Saturdays

In 2022, everyone was ready to get back to their pre-pandemic routines, and restaurants were ready with open doors. While online orders and delivery services may have become new offerings for some locations, the desire to draw patrons has not. Target audience and platform goals factor into ways businesses connect with their customers. Offering unique promotions or showcasing your menu in an attention-grabbing way on TikTok will keep your restaurant in mind for potential customers.

Restaurants and bars on LinkedIn see decent engagement at midday during the week. However, the peak engagement and best times to post on TikTok for restaurants and bars are Mondays at noon and 3 p.m., Tuesdays from 2 to 5 p.m. and Thursdays at 4 p.m.

Restaurant social media resources

• The complete guide to social media for restaurants & bars
• 5 tips from the man behind #Sprinklegate
• Auntie Anne’s SMM Bari’s TikTok Bootcamp [Webinar]

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Schools & Education

• Best times to post on TikTok for Schools & Education:
  • Wednesdays at 7 a.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Schools & Education: Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Schools & Education: Mondays and Sundays

Universities, higher education institutions and schools see some, but not much, engagement on TikTok according to our data. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time.

Schools and education don’t see many concentrated opportunities on TikTok; however, this shouldn’t prevent them from using the entertainment platform, since there’s an opportunity to engage with the next wave of students: Gen Z. The best times to post on TikTok for education and schools are generally Wednesdays at 7 a.m.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for education needs to fulfill multiple functions. Are you looking to engage with students past, present and future? Are you looking to keep a pulse on sentiment and brand health?

Schools and education social media resources

• Choose wisely: Higher education marketers take on College Decision Day
• All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24%
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university

Best Times to Post on TikTok for Travel & Tourism

• Best times to post on TikTok for Travel & Tourism:
  • Wednesdays from 3 to 5 p.m.
• Best days to post on TikTok for Travel & Tourism: Wednesdays and Thursdays
• Worst days to post on TikTok for Travel & Tourism: Sundays

Travel and tourism industries see some decent engagement on TikTok. As many travel restrictions continued to be lifted and the semblance of “normal” crept back into many peoples’ lives, travel and tourism businesses see an opportunity to capitalize on the suppressed desires to travel.

The best times to post on TikTok for travel and tourism businesses are Wednesdays from 3 to 5 p.m. And these peak hours see moderate engagement in the hours before and after those optimal times.

Travel and tourism social media resources

• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How to manage multiple social media accounts
• When to Create Separate Social Media Accounts for your Multilocation Business [Free Worksheet]

How to find your own best times to post on TikTok

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own social media data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active near the peak times we’ve outlined or hours earlier.

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing repeated the analysis, and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media
• Best times to post on Facebook
• Best times to post on Instagram
• Best times to post on LinkedIn
• Best times to post on Twitter

How Sprout gathered the data

We understand that these reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

Sprout Social’s Data Science team gathers this information by analyzing nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

Find your best time to post with Sprout

Now’s the time to test your content calendar. Are you posting when your followers are most active? Start your free trial of Sprout Social and discover the best times to post on social media today.

The post Best times to post on TikTok in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

Businesses see the value of Twitter in terms of staying close to emerging topics, trends and sentiments from global audiences. And now, more than ever, marketers understand the importance of staying close to the conversations and brand sentiment. And as a platform for conversations and customer care, it’s important to understand how to use Twitter for business in a meaningful way.

Learn how to identify your best times to post globally on Twitter a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature with your profiles.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally, meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

• What are the best times to post on Twitter?
• What are the best times to post on Twitter by industry?
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Hospitality
  • Media
  • Nonprofit
  • Restaurants
  • Schools & Education
  • Travel & Tourism
• How to find your own best times to post on social media
• How Sprout gathered the data
• Find your best times to post with Sprout

Best Times to Post on Twitter

• Best times to post on Twitter:
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Fridays 9 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Twitter: Tuesdays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter: Sundays

Twitter has consistently been the platform for up-to-the-minute conversations and breaking news. And 2022 didn’t stop with breaking news and trends on or about Twitter. Brands looking to participate in trending topics need to be timely but conscious of their brand values in the process.

Twitter peak times for engagement grew significantly compared to last year, with hours consistently at late-morning to midday during weekdays. The best times to post on Twitter are Tuesdays through Fridays beginning at 9 a.m. and taper off around noon.

This could reflect an interest in developing news and updates as the day unfolds, as well as a desire for entertainment. Keep in mind many brands use Twitter as part of their customer service strategy, as an alternative to traditional customer support options. Brands should continue to build trust between their customers and proactively improve customer experience through social listening.

Best Times to Post on Twitter by Industry

There’s no definitive answer to what the best times to post on Twitter are, and we can only offer insight with the data we have. Industry is just one factor that plays into the success of your social posts. Consider as well as your target audience, business goals and the content itself.

Use this industry-level data to help inform your publishing calendar, and test your optimal send times with social experiments.

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Hospitals & Healthcare

• Best times to post on Twitter for Hospitals & Healthcare:
  • Mondays at 2 p.m.
  • Tuesdays at 8 a.m.
  • Thursdays from 8 to 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Twitter for Hospitals & Healthcare: Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Hospitals & Healthcare: Weekends

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers have been put to work on social media the last few years, due to the pandemic. However, social media for healthcare is more than navigating healthcare crises. It’s about educating the public, helping patients feel more comfortable with healthcare visits and doctors’ appointments, promoting their programs for aspiring physicians and establishing themselves as pillars in the community.

The best times to post on Twitter for healthcare and hospitals stay consistent compared to last year. Nearly every single day sees moderate engagement starting at 7 a.m. seven days a week. However, the best times to post on Twitter for hospitals and healthcare are Mondays at 2 p.m., Tuesdays at 8 a.m., and Thursdays from 8 to 11 a.m. Higher than average posting times are Tuesday and Thursday midmornings into early afternoons.

Hospital and healthcare social media resources

• Social media and healthcare: how to keep patients engaged
• Why healthcare orgs should invest in social listening, stat
• Supporting HIPAA Compliance on social: a cheat sheet

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Hospitality

• Best times to post on Twitter for Hospitality:
  • Tuesdays at 10 p.m.
  • Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
  • Fridays at 8 p.m.
• Best days to post on Twitter for Hospitality: Fridays and Saturdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Hospitality: Sundays and Mondays

The hospitality industry has seen more engagement and posting days on Twitter. Consumers are craving some semblance of pre-pandemic life and businesses sense it. Hospitality businesses see higher engagement consistently in the evening hours, starting at 6 p.m. almost every day of the week, whereas last year, it was only for three days of the week.

The best times to post on Twitter for the hospitality industry are Tuesdays at 10 p.m., Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and Fridays at 8 p.m. Essentially late evening hours when people are looking to engage with hospitality brands. Moderate engagement last a few hours before or after those optimal posting times, and is relatively light during average business hours.

Hospitality social media resources

• Social media marketing tools for the travel industry
• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• When to create separate social media accounts for your multilocation business [Free Worksheet]

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Media

• Best times to post on Twitter for Media:
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 10 p.m. to midnight
• Best days to post on Twitter for Media: Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Media: Saturdays

The media and entertainment industry also sees consistent engagement on Twitter. Media businesses could expect engagement from early weekday mornings through the afternoons. Major global events, political upheavals and business news have had a relevant impact on media impressions on all networks, especially Twitter.

News travels quickly, and the best times to post on Twitter for the media and entertainment industry are Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 10 p.m. to midnight.

Media social media resources

• How to supercharge your media relations strategy with social
• How RADIO.COM used social listening to crown the #ArtistOfTheSummer
• Social media and journalism: how to effectively reach the public

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Nonprofit

• Best times to post on Twitter for Nonprofit:
  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and at 8 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Twitter for Nonprofit: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Nonprofit: Saturdays

Our data for the best times to post on Twitter for nonprofits shows consistent Twitter engagement throughout the week during general business hours and extending into the evening.

The best times to post on Twitter for nonprofit organizations are Mondays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 8 a.m., Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon.

However, even with the consistent audience engagement seen in the heatmap above, all businesses need to test their own best times to post. Whether it’s through social testing or using Sprout’s Optimal Send Times feature, find what times work best for your organization on Twitter.

Nonprofit social media resources

• Turning moments into momentum: How nonprofits can leverage #GivingTuesday year-round
• How this nonprofit institute boosts messaging reach with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social
• The ultimate social media for museums guide

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Restaurants

• Best times to post on Twitter for Restaurants:
  • Thursdays at 11 p.m.
• Best days to post on Twitter for Restaurants: Tuesdays and Fridays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Restaurants: Sundays

In 2022, everyone was ready to get back to their pre-pandemic routines, and restaurants were ready with open doors. While online orders and delivery services may have become new offerings for some locations, the desire to draw patrons has not. Target audience and platform goals factor into ways businesses connect with their customers. Offering unique promotions and updates on Twitter will keep your restaurant in mind for potential customers.

Twitter engagement for restaurants and bars shows decent engagement midday during the week between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., generally. However, the peak engagement and best time to post on Twitter for restaurants and bars is Thursdays at 11 p.m.

Restaurant social media resources

• The complete guide to social media for restaurants & bars
• 5 tips from the man behind #Sprinklegate
• Auntie Anne’s SMM Bari’s TikTok Bootcamp [Webinar]

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Schools & Education

• Best times to post on Twitter for Schools & Education:
  • Mondays at 10 a.m.
  • Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to noon
  • Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to noon
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Twitter for Schools & Education: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Schools & Education: Sundays

Universities, higher education institutions and schools see a significant increase in engagements on Twitter compared to last year. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time.

High opportunities for engagement start midmorning and go through later evening hours. The best times to post on Twitter for education and schools are Mondays at 10 a.m., Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to noon, and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for education needs to fulfill multiple functions. Are you looking to engage with students past, present and future? Are you looking to keep a pulse on sentiment and brand health?

Schools and education social media resources

• Choose wisely: Higher education marketers take on College Decision Day
• All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24%
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university

Best Times to Post on Twitter for Travel & Tourism

• Best times to post on Twitter for Travel & Tourism:
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Thursdays at 10 a.m.
  • Sundays at noon
• Best days to post on Twitter for Travel & Tourism: Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays
• Worst days to post on Twitter for Travel & Tourism: Saturdays

Travel and tourism industries nearly tripled their engagement on Twitter compared to last year. As many travel restrictions continued to be lifted and the semblance of “normal” crept back into many peoples’ lives, travel and tourism businesses see an opportunity to capitalize on the suppressed desires to travel.

The best times to post on Twitter for travel and tourism businesses are Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursdays at 10 a.m., and Sundays at noon. And these peak hours see moderate engagement in the hours before and after those optimal times.

Travel and tourism social media resources

• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How to manage multiple social media accounts
• When to Create Separate Social Media Accounts for your Multilocation Business [Free Worksheet]

How to find your own best times to post on social media

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own social media data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active near the peak times we’ve outlined or hours earlier.

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing the repeated analysis and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media 2023
• Best times to post on Facebook 2023
• Best times to post on Instagram 2023
• Best times to post on LinkedIn 2023
• Best times to post on TikTok 2023

How Sprout gathered the data

We understand that these reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

Sprout Social’s Data Science team gathers this information by analyzing nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

Find your best time to post with Sprout

Now’s the time to test your content calendar. Are you posting when your followers are most active? Start your free trial of Sprout Social and discover the best times to post on social media today.

Use of Twitter nomenclature across Sprout refers to newly rebranded X platform and related terminology

The post Best times to post on Twitter in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

What types of content do users engage with and how often should you post on social media? While we can’t answer those questions in this article, we can answer when to post on social media. For frequency, read our guide on how often to post on social to uncover data to help guide your social strategies.

Remember: with Instagram as a discovery platform of trends, brands, products or services, it’s important to get high-quality photos and content in front of potential consumers’ eyes at the right time.

Learn how to identify your best times to post on Instagram with a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally, meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

• What are the best times to post on Instagram?
• What are the best times to post on Instagram by industry?
  • Consumer Goods
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Hospitality
  • Media
  • Nonprofit
  • Restaurants
  • Schools & Education
  • Travel & Tourism
• How to find your own best times to post on social media
• How Sprout gathered the data
• Find your best times to post with Sprout

Best Times to Post on Instagram

• Best times to post on Instagram:
  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Fridays from 9 to 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram: Sundays

Where Facebook was the most-used platform by marketers worldwide, Instagram comes in second with 79%. Not surprisingly, Instagram is also the second most preferred platform for customer service after Facebook, for marketers and consumers. With the competition for short-form video between Instagram and TikTok still heating up, Reels account for 30% of time spent on the Meta-owned platform.

The best times to post on Instagram are Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., generally. Similar to Facebook, the “off” hours are the early morning hours every day of the week, from midnight until 4 a.m.

Instagram has grown a long way since its photo-only days. The app, which has nearly 2 billion monthly active users, is a platform to share images, videos, Reels, and live streams, just to name a few creative content types. It is also an avenue to collaborate and partner with other brands and provides a stream of revenue through its e-commerce capabilities. There are opportunities to get more followers on Instagram if you use use the platform to its full potential.

The Instagram algorithm is unpredictable. To be successful on the platform is a balance of consistently posting high-quality content that will engage and entertain your audiences. That’s a lot to ask for with each piece of content published. But using that as a guiding post can help with your Instagram marketing efforts.

Best Times to Post on Instagram by Industry

There’s no definitive answer to what the best times to post on Instagram are. We can only offer insight with the data we have. Industry is just one factor that plays into the success of your social posts. Consider as well as your target audience, business goals and the content itself.

Use this industry-level data to help inform your publishing calendar, and test your optimal send times with social experiments.

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Consumer Goods

• Best times to post on Instagram for Consumer Goods:
  • Thursdays at 2 p.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram for Consumer Goods: Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Consumer Goods: Sundays

The consumer goods industry covers a large portfolio of products, ranging from packaged food and beverages to clothing and accessories and everything in between. While the US was facing inflation at nearly 8.5%, US consumers spent 18% more in March 2022 than they did two years prior. After two years into the pandemic, consumers were ready to spend similar to their pre-pandemic habits and more in 2022.

For consumer goods businesses on Instagram, every day has some engagement, but the peak engagement time is on Thursdays at 2 p.m. However, Tuesdays at 10 a.m. also see significant engagement, relative to the rest of the week.

Consumer goods social media resources

• Solutions for Social Commerce
• How to master social media for retail and win more customers
• What is social commerce? Stats, examples & tips for your strategy
• Mobile commerce: what it is and why you should care

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Hospitals & Healthcare

• Best times to post on Instagram for Hospitals & Healthcare:
  • Thursdays at 1 p.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram for Hospitals & Healthcare: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Hospitals & Healthcare: Sundays

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers have been put to work on social media the last few years, due to the pandemic. However, social media for healthcare is more than navigating healthcare crises. It’s about educating the public, helping patients feel more comfortable with healthcare visits and doctors’ appointments, promoting their programs for aspiring physicians and establishing themselves as pillars in the community.

Best times to post on Instagram for healthcare and hospitals nearly doubles. Every single day sees moderate engagement starting at 7 a.m. seven days a week. However, the best times to post on Instagram for hospitals are Thursdays at 1 p.m. Higher than average posting times are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons starting at 1 p.m. until about 4 p.m.

Hospital and healthcare social media resources

• Social media and healthcare: how to keep patients engaged
• Why healthcare orgs should invest in social listening, stat
• Supporting HIPAA Compliance on social: a cheat sheet

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Hospitality

• Best times to post on Instagram for Hospitality:
  • Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays at noon
  • Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Instagram for Hospitality: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Hospitality: Sundays

The hospitality industry has seen a shift in higher posting and engagement days on Instagram. Consumers are craving some semblance of pre-pandemic life and businesses sense it. Hospitality businesses see higher engagement earlier in the week, compared to last year when their higher engagement was in the latter half. Thankfully businesses in the industry see a return on their efforts throughout most of the workday.

The best times to post on Instagram for the hospitality industry are Tuesdays at 10 a.m., Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Thursdays at noon, and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon. Essentially late mornings and into the lunch hours during the week, presumably as people are beginning to plan their weekends. Moderate engagement lasts a few hours until about 5 p.m. While weekends are relatively light in engagement for hospitality businesses, there’s still enough engagement on posts to continue posting then.

Hospitality social media resources

• Social media marketing tools for the travel industry
• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• When to create separate social media accounts for your multilocation business [Free Worksheet]

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Media

• Best times to post on Instagram for Media:
  • Mondays at 11 a.m.
  • Wednesdays at 11 a.m.
  • Thursdays at 10 a.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram for Media: Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Media: Saturdays and Sundays

Engagement in the media and entertainment industry also sees a resurgence on Instagram. Audiences could be checking into the app for longer sessions rather than quick visits throughout the day, or the algorithm and newsfeed refreshes are manipulating the higher engagements. Major global events, political upheavals and business news have a relevant impact on media impressions on all networks, including Instagram.

As it goes, news travels quickly, and the best times to post on Instagram for the media and entertainment industry are Mondays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays at 11 a.m., and Thursdays at 10 a.m. However, there is still considerable engagement from 5 a.m. through 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

Media social media resources

• How to supercharge your media relations strategy with social
• How RADIO.COM used social listening to crown the #ArtistOfTheSummer
• Social media and journalism: how to effectively reach the public

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Nonprofit

• Best times to post on Instagram for Nonprofit:
  • Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Instagram for Nonprofit: Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Nonprofit: Saturdays and Sundays

Our data for the best times to post on Instagram for nonprofits shows consistent Instagram engagement throughout the week during general business hours. Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon are the best times to post on Instagram for nonprofits.

However, even with the consistent audience engagement seen in the heatmap above, all businesses need to test their own best times to post. Whether it’s through social testing or using Sprout’s Optimal Send Times feature, find what times work best for your organization on Instagram.

Nonprofit social media resources

• Turning moments into momentum: How nonprofits can leverage #GivingTuesday year-round
• How this nonprofit institute boosts messaging reach with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social
• The ultimate social media for museums guide

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Restaurants

• Best times to post on Instagram for Restaurants:
  • Mondays at 2 p.m. and from 4 to 6 p.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram for Restaurants: Mondays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Restaurants: Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays

In 2022, everyone was ready to get back to their pre-pandemic routines, and restaurants were ready with open doors. While online orders and delivery services may have become new offerings for some locations, the desire to draw patrons has not. Target audience and platform goals factor into ways businesses connect with their customers. Offering unique promotions and updates on Instagram will keep your restaurant in mind for potential customers.

Those in the bar and restaurant industry see most of their engagement in the early half of the week, Mondays through Wednesdays. The best times to post for restaurants on Instagram are Mondays at 2 p.m. and from 4 to 6 p.m. However, there are almost just as many engagements Mondays through Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Restaurant social media resources

• The complete guide to social media for restaurants & bars
• 5 tips from the man behind #Sprinklegate
• Auntie Anne’s SMM Bari’s TikTok Bootcamp [Webinar]

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Schools & Education

• Best times to post on Instagram for Schools & Education:
  • Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m.
  • Wednesdays at noon and 3 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Instagram for Schools & Education: Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Schools & Education: Sundays

Universities, higher education institutions and schools see a significant increase in engagements on Instagram compared to last year. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time.

High opportunities for engagement start midmorning and go through early evening hours. The best times to post on Instagram for education are Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m., Wednesdays at noon and 3 p.m., and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for education needs to fulfill multiple functions. Are you looking to engage with students past, present and future? Are you looking to keep a pulse on sentiment and brand health?

Schools and education social media resources

• Choose wisely: Higher education marketers take on College Decision Day
• All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24%
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Travel & Tourism

• Best times to post on Instagram for Travel & Tourism:
  • Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
• Best days to post on Instagram for Travel & Tourism: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Instagram for Travel & Tourism: Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays

Travel and tourism industries nearly doubled their engagement on Instagram relative to last year. As many travel restrictions continued to be lifted and the semblance of “normal” crept back into many peoples’ lives, travel and tourism businesses see an opportunity to capitalize on the suppressed desires to travel.

The best times to post on Instagram for travel and tourism brands are earlier in the week: Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. saw consistent engagement, as well as Fridays between 7 a.m. and noon. But the peak time to post on Instagram is 10 a.m. on Tuesdays for travel and tourism businesses.

Travel and tourism social media resources

• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How to manage multiple social media accounts
• When to Create Separate Social Media Accounts for your Multilocation Business [Free Worksheet]

How to find your own best times to post on social media

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own social media data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active near the peak times we’ve outlined or hours earlier.

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing the repeated analysis and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media 2023
• Best times to post on Facebook 2023
• Best times to post on LinkedIn 2023
• Best times to post on TikTok 2023
• Best times to post on Twitter 2023

How Sprout gathered the data

We understand that these reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

Sprout Social’s Data Science team gathers this information by analyzing nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

Find your best time to post with Sprout

Now’s the time to test your content calendar. Are you posting when your followers are most active? Start your free trial of Sprout Social and discover the best times to post on social media today.

The post Best times to post on Instagram in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

With the help of our Data Science team, we’ve been able to analyze nearly 2 billion social media engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok. And even more, we’re able to provide an analysis of the best times to post on Facebook.

As the most-used platform by marketers worldwide and boasting nearly 3 billion monthly active users, there’s no denying Facebook’s staying power. With a large opportunity for engagement, it’s important to understand how posting on Facebook at the right times will benefit your social media content strategy.

Learn how to identify your best times to post on Facebook with a free trial of Sprout Social and test our ViralPost® feature.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded globally, meaning you should be able to publish with the times provided in any timezone and see positive engagement results. Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times. We recommend testing with your own accounts to find the most optimal send times.

• What are the best times to post on Facebook?
• What are the best times to post on Facebook by industry?
  • Consumer Goods
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Hospitality
  • Media
  • Nonprofit
  • Restaurants
  • Schools & Education
  • Travel & Tourism
• How to find your own best times to post on social media
• How Sprout gathered the data
• Find your best times to post with Sprout

Best Times to Post on Facebook

• Best times to post on Facebook:
  • Mondays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 8 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Facebook: Mondays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook: Sundays

Don’t look alarmed. Facebook is still the most used platform by marketers worldwide at 90%, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. We’ve seen an interesting shift in most engagement times matching general business hours versus very early morning hours in recent years. What does this mean for marketers?

Optimal send times for Facebook are Mondays through Thursdays starting at 8 a.m. until early afternoon, generally 1 p.m. The only “off” hours for posting on Facebook are very early hours on Fridays through Mondays, generally midnight until 4 a.m.

With a solid Facebook marketing strategy, businesses can target the right audiences at the right time with their content. Keep in mind, engagement also has to do with how often you post on social media and what you post. Not all social content translates well across every social media platform. Posting the right content on the right platform makes a difference.

Best Times to Post on Facebook by Industry

Remember, while we’d like to believe there’s a definitive answer to what the best times to post on Facebook are, we can only offer insight with the data we have. Industry is just one factor that plays into the success of your social posts.

Use this industry-level data to help inform your publishing calendar, and test your optimal send times with social experiments.

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Consumer Goods

• Best times to post on Facebook for Consumer Goods:
  • Mondays at 7 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 6 to 8 p.m.
  • Fridays from 6 to 8 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Consumer Goods: Mondays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Consumer Goods: None, generally speaking

The consumer goods industry covers a large portfolio of products, ranging from packaged food and beverages to clothing and accessories and everything in between. While the US was facing inflation at nearly 8.5%, US consumers spent 18% more in March 2022 than they did two years prior. After two years into the pandemic, consumers were ready to spend similar to their pre-pandemic habits.

With the increase in spending habits, consumer goods’ social media engagements also grew. For consumer goods businesses on Facebook, every single day saw solid engagement after 7 a.m. That’s right: weekdays and weekends. For peak engagement, Mondays at 7 p.m. and Tuesdays and Fridays from 6 to 8 p.m. are optimal times for this industry.

Consumer goods social media resources

• Solutions for Social Commerce
• How to master social media for retail and win more customers
• What is social commerce? Stats, examples & tips for your strategy
• Mobile commerce: what it is and why you should care

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare

• Best times to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare:
  • Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 8 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 8 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 6 to 8 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 4 to 7 p.m.
  • Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare: Mondays and Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Hospitals & Healthcare: Weekends, relatively

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers have been put to work on social media the last few years, due to the pandemic. But, social media for healthcare is more than navigating healthcare crises. It’s about educating the public, helping patients feel more comfortable with healthcare visits and doctors’ appointments, promoting their programs for aspiring physicians and establishing themselves as pillars in the community.

Best times to post on Facebook for healthcare and hospitals expands compared to last year. Every single day sees solid engagement around 7 a.m., both weekdays and weekends. Yet, peak posting times on Facebook for hospitals are weekdays from 9 a.m. through noon (through 1 p.m. on Fridays only), and Monday and Tuesday afternoons from 1 to 8 p.m. Evening hours are equally engaging Wednesdays through Fridays.

Hospital and healthcare social media resources

• Social media and healthcare: how to keep patients engaged
• Why healthcare orgs should invest in social listening, stat
• Supporting HIPAA Compliance on social: a cheat sheet

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Hospitality

• Best times to post on Facebook for Hospitality:
  • Mondays from noon to 9 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Fridays at 3 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Hospitality: Mondays through Thursdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Hospitality: Sundays, relatively

What an impressive jump in posting and engagement from the hospitality industry! Consumers see some semblance of pre-pandemic life and brands sense it. Compared to the year prior, the hospitality went full-force with posting on social media and they saw a return on their efforts throughout most of the day.

You can’t go wrong posting anytime after 10 a.m. on most weekdays and still find significant engagement. However, peak times last for several hours until about 8 or 9 p.m. While weekends are relatively light in engagement for hospitality businesses, there’s still moderate engagement where posts are still being noticed and interacted with.

Hospitality social media resources

• Social media marketing tools for the travel industry
• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How Loews Hotels & Co succeeds at scale with Sprout Social’s all-in-one platform
• When to create separate social media accounts for your multilocation business [Free Worksheet]

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Media

• Best times to post on Facebook for Media:
  • Mondays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays at 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Media: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Media: Weekends, relatively

Engagement for the media and entertainment industry also see a resurgence on Facebook last year. Audiences could be checking into the app for longer sessions rather than quick visits throughout the day, or it could be multiple quick check-ins and algorithm newsfeed refreshes that are manipulating the higher engagements. Major global events, political upheavals and business news have had a relevant impact on media impressions on all networks.

As it goes, news travels quickly, and the best times to post on Facebook for the media and entertainment industry are Mondays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesdays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Thursdays at 11 a.m. However, there is still solid engagement in the early evenings in the first half of the week.

Media social media resources

• How to supercharge your media relations strategy with social
• How RADIO.COM used social listening to crown the #ArtistOfTheSummer
• Social media and journalism: how to effectively reach the public

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Nonprofit

• Best times to post on Facebook for Nonprofit:
  • Mondays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Nonprofit: Mondays through Wednesdays, but especially on Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Nonprofit: Sundays

Compared to last year’s data, there’s been a significant increase in Facebook activity for nonprofits. Our data for the best times to post on Facebook for nonprofits shows solid Facebook engagement throughout the week during general business hours as well as midday on weekends. Mondays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. are the best times to post on Facebook for nonprofits.

However, even with the consistent audience engagement seen in the heatmap above, all businesses need to test their own best times to post. Whether it’s through social testing or using Sprout’s Optimal Send Times feature, find what times work best for your organization on Facebook.

Nonprofit social media resources

• Turning moments into momentum: How nonprofits can leverage #GivingTuesday year-round
• How this nonprofit institute boosts messaging reach with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social
• The ultimate social media for museums guide

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Restaurants

• Best times to post on Facebook for Restaurants:
  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon
  • Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Restaurants: Mondays and Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Restaurants: Weekends, relatively

In 2022, everyone was ready to get back to their pre-pandemic routines, and restaurants were ready with open doors. While online orders and delivery services may have become new offerings for some locations, the desire to draw patrons has not. And restaurants saw nearly 2x more engagements on Facebook than last year’s analysis.

Those in the bar and restaurant industry see consistent engagement between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. almost every single day. The best times to post for restaurants on Facebook though are just before or around lunchtime: Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m.

Different platforms offer a unique way for businesses to connect with their customers. Target audience and their social media platform preferences also play a factor in this. Offering unique promotions and updates suited for each platform will keep your restaurant in mind for potential customers.

Restaurant social media resources

• The complete guide to social media for restaurants & bars
• 5 tips from the man behind #Sprinklegate
• Auntie Anne’s SMM Bari’s TikTok Bootcamp [Webinar]

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Schools & Education

• Best times to post on Facebook for Schools & Education:
  • Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon
  • Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Fridays at 10 a.m.
• Best days to post on Facebook for Schools & Education: Mondays through Wednesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Schools & Education: Weekends

There was no slowing down for universities, higher education institutions and schools on Facebook. Keep in mind that some schools manage multiple social profiles (per college, athletics, etc.) to meet these needs and effectively target distinct audiences at the right time. Research by BestColleges reports that 60% of remote learners expect to enroll in online courses even after campuses return to normal and 90% of online program graduates would recommend online learning to others.

High opportunities for engagement start midmorning and go throughout the day, but the best times to post on Facebook for education are Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Fridays at 10 a.m.

From highlighting student life to sharing school updates, a social media strategy for education needs to fulfill multiple functions. Are you looking to engage with students past, present and future? Are you looking to keep a pulse on sentiment and brand health?

Schools and education social media resources

• Choose wisely: Higher education marketers take on College Decision Day
• All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24%
• University branding: How to build your school’s brand on social media
• Higher ed playbook: Using social to unite your university

Best Times to Post on Facebook for Travel & Tourism

• Best times to post on Facebook for Travel & Tourism:
  • Mondays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon
• Best days to post on Facebook for Travel & Tourism: Mondays and Tuesdays
• Worst days to post on Facebook for Travel & Tourism: Sundays

Travel and tourism industries nearly double their engagement on Facebook. As many travel restrictions continued to be lifted and the semblance of “normal” crept back into many peoples’ lives, travel and tourism businesses saw an opportunity to capitalize on the suppressed desires to travel.

The best times to post on Facebook for travel and tourism brands are earlier in the week: Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. until about 2 or 3 p.m., as well as on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon. In general, on Facebook, there is significant engagement midday and early in the week for travel and tourism, as people are preparing for their weekend destinations.

Travel and tourism social media resources

• How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social
• How to manage multiple social media accounts
• When to Create Separate Social Media Accounts for your Multilocation Business [Free Worksheet]

How to find your own best times to post on social media

Social marketers can plan content more effectively when they’re armed with data. And as platforms evolve, how brands and consumers use social will evolve with them, or vice versa. Staying aware of new content formats and trends might help you reach your audience in unexpected ways, or even find new segments and personas you weren’t focusing on before.

While you may be ready to jump in and post at these provided peak engagement times as part of your strategy, consider pairing this data with your own social media data analysis. You may discover that your specific target audience is active near the peak times we’ve outlined or hours earlier.

A social media management tool like Sprout Social can help you drill into your analytics and develop tailored findings for your brand accounts across all networks, holistically and individually. Gain competitive insights by comparing your performance to your competitors, to find new opportunities for engagement.

With features like post tagging and cross-network reporting, you can separate different factors like post author or types of content, and drill down into how your posting time influenced your social success.

Sprout’s patented ViralPost® technology uses the same data we’ve used to look at all our customer accounts to determine the best time to post tailored for your account. ViralPost® algorithmically determines the results for our Optimal Send Times feature, a publishing option available in all plans. Our proprietary machine learning feature isn’t new, but we’re constantly learning and improving our product to help brands surface insights faster. Our goal is to help people who use our product work more effectively.

With Optimal Send Times, the specific times offered are based on when your audience engages the most using your publishing history. ViralPost® also continually updates and refines to save you time from doing the repeated analysis and allowing you more time to craft great content.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social or request a personalized demo and try it for yourself.

Start a free Sprout Social trial

If you’re looking for more of our findings from this year’s study of our customer data, see what we learned about the best times to post across eight industries on these networks:

• Best times to post on Social Media 2023
• Best times to post on Instagram 2023
• Best times to post on LinkedIn 2023
• Best times to post on TikTok 2023
• Best times to post on Twitter 2023

How Sprout gathered the data

We understand that these reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

Sprout Social’s Data Science team gathers this information by analyzing nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

Find your best time to post with Sprout

Now’s the time to test your content calendar. Are you posting when your followers are most active? Start your free trial of Sprout Social and discover the best times to post on social media today.

The post Best times to post on Facebook in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

We built this scorecard to aid your social media management tool comparison. After you complete it, you will be empowered to choose a vendor that meets your business requirements, supports customers like you, builds its platform for the long-run and consistently invests in R&D.

This comprehensive rubric will help you vet vendors by comparing their performance in the following categories:

• Strategic vision and roadmap
• Customer support
• Production adoption and cross-team collaboration
• Security and compliance
• Insights and analytics
• Organizational impact and proving ROI

Download this scorecard to help you invest in the best possible social media management platform for your team.

The post Find Your Next Social Media Management Tool With This Scorecard appeared first on Sprout Social.

Sure, you may be creating awesome content. But if no one is Liking or commenting on it, there’s a good chance your account will fall through the cracks. Next thing you know, you’re struggling to get customers from Instagram, and your investment simply goes to waste.

In this guide, we show you exactly what to do to give your Instagram engagement rate a much-needed boost. Let’s dive in.

Table of contents

• What is Instagram engagement?
• How to calculate your Instagram engagement rate
• What is a good engagement rate on Instagram?
• 13 tips to improve your Instagram engagement rate
• Why a good engagement rate matters on Instagram

What is Instagram engagement?

Instagram engagement refers to a measure of how people are interacting with your content. It considers details such as your follower count along with interactions such as likes, comments, saves and shares. This metric helps you gauge how well your content resonates with your audience.

How to calculate your Instagram engagement rate

To calculate your Instagram engagement rate, you’ll need to look at the total number of content interactions. This includes Likes, comments, shares, Story replies and saves. Then use the formula below to calculate.

Engagement rate = (Total interactions/Impressions) x 100

What is a good engagement rate on Instagram?

According to the latest Instagram stats, posts typically get an average engagement rate of 0.98%. So anything around this number should be safe. That said, you’d ideally want to shoot for a higher engagement rate than the platform average.

13 tips to improve your Instagram engagement rate

Now it’s time for the fun part. The following tips will show you how to get more Instagram engagement.

1.     Actually engage with your audience

We’re starting this list off easy. To drive more engagement from your followers, you need to interact with them. Social media isn’t a one-way street. If you want to build an engaged audience, you need to acknowledge your followers. Remember, every comment you get means someone took the time to stop, look at your post and share their thoughts. After all that, why wouldn’t you respond?

If you want to build up engagement, know that it takes time and you need to start conversations on posts other than your own. Asking questions, responding to comments and replying to Stories are some of the few ways to engage more with your audience.

With comment threading, it’s even easier to know which ones you’ve missed on your posts. Not to mention, Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox lets you easily check off comments you’ve already responded to.

As your account starts to grow and you get more comments, you might not be able to respond to everyone. But that doesn’t mean you should give up entirely. You can still Like comments or just try to reply to as many as possible.

For instance, Canva has over a million followers on Instagram. The brand deals with hundreds of comments on its posts, so it’s not always viable to reply to every single comment. However, it takes time to respond to comments that ask questions or bring up an important feature.

Source

2.     Copy your top-performing posts

What works for you might not work for someone else. Take a look at your past months’ best-performing posts. Is there a common theme among your top performers?

For example, you might find that photos with bright and bold colors get a ton of Likes. Or maybe people are engaging more with Reels that have music in the background.

Use our Instagram dashboard to find your top-performing posts. Then look for commonalities between the posts and try to incorporate more of them in the future.

3.     Use Instagram Stories to your advantage

Instagram offers plenty of stickers that make it easy to drive engagement through Stories. Every time someone engages with those stickers, it counts toward your engagement.

Use these stickers to conduct polls and quizzes or get your followers to ask you questions. See how Living Stone Construction creates a simple poll asking people to vote if they like the renovation work. You could make it more fun and competitive by asking people to guess the correct answer to a question.

The question sticker is perfect for hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. You’ll then be able to share a series of Stories answering those questions.

One of the latest Instagram trends involves using the “Add Yours” sticker. Use this sticker to start a challenge and get people to engage with your brand. Share a prompt and encourage people to participate in your challenge by adding their own content.

4.     Promote across networks

It goes without saying that the audience for your Facebook Page might not be the same as the audience on your Instagram account. Chances are that some of your Facebook audience is on Instagram, but they just don’t know that you exist there yet. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle some cross-network promotional posts to encourage more followers.

5.     Be strategic with Instagram ads

When Facebook added Instagram into their Ads Manager, new targeting possibilities opened up. Sure, you can boost a post or promote your account, but it’s important to be more nuanced and strategic about it.

Take advantage of the customization by using retargeting and custom audiences. For instance, if you visit a furniture store website like Pottery Barn, you’ll start to get ads from other furniture stores. After searching around for a bookshelf, we found the following ads from other brands that sell furniture.

Custom audiences can come from many sources. But to start, try using:

• Your newsletter lists
• People who have visited your store
• Those who purchased from your website
• People who’ve engaged with your Facebook or Instagram accounts

From there, you’ll then be able to find even more people similar to any of the above audiences using the lookalike audience feature.

Getting familiar with all the Instagram advertising options will put you ahead of your competitors. And retargeting will further help you improve conversions and lower your ad costs.

6.     Create more short-form video content

Guess what we found in the 2022 Sprout Social Index? Short-form video is the most engaging type of in-feed social content. That means your Instagram content strategy needs to change direction. And the focus should shift to creating more short-form videos.

In other words, Reels are your best friend for boosting your Instagram engagement. Who knows? It might even be just the thing you need to go viral on Instagram.

Create Reels showing how-to tips and tricks or behind-the-scenes processes, for instance. Reels can be informational as well, providing a quick list of things people might want to know. See how Drunk Elephant creates a Reel listing some reasons why a certain product is great.

Source

7.     Make the most of the Collab feature

Instagram recently introduced a feature enabling users to create Collab posts with other users. A Collab post shows up in the Feeds of both of your followers, meaning a chance to garner higher engagement. So make the most of this feature to collaborate with influencers, industry leaders and brand partners.

Source

The Honest Kitchen regularly creates Collab posts with pet influencers to promote its human-grade pet food. This allows the brand to get its products in front of a massive and relevant audience i.e., the pet influencer’s followers. As expected, these posts have managed to garner hundreds of thousands of Likes and comments.

8.     Give sneak peeks and hints

Followers love it when you let them in on a secret. Even if they’re public posts, giving sneak peeks and hints of new releases makes the audience think they’re part of a special group. It entices them to guess what’s going on and encourages them to revisit the profile to see if there’s been an announcement.

Check out how Fourth Ray Beauty shares a teaser for an upcoming product without giving too much away. The Reel gives a short close-up shot of the new product. And the caption only gives a hint by including a cherry emoji.

Source

9.     Write captions that drive engagement

Your Instagram captions give you the perfect opportunity to include a call for action. In this case, the action would involve some type of engagement. For example, asking a question in your caption would encourage your followers to share their answers in the comments. Or you could share a prompt that would make them want to share their experience or thoughts by commenting.

For example, Pottery Barn shares a carousel post showcasing different stool and pendant pairings for a kitchen island. It then asks followers to vote for their favorite in the comments. Needless to say, the post managed to rack up plenty of comments from enthusiastic followers who wanted to vote.

Source

10.  Post your content at the best times

Use our Instagram analytics to find out when the best time to post is for you. You want to post when most of your followers are online and engaging on the app. Even with the best photo and wittiest caption, you could still miss out on engagement if you’re posting at the wrong hour.

We did some research into the best times to post on Instagram, and here’s what we found for Instagram.

But keep in mind that the specific timing may be different for your account. Instagram business accounts offer analytics that tells you when your followers are most active. Use this information to schedule your posts and free up your time to engage with comments. Alternatively, use Sprout’s ViralPost feature to automatically schedule your posts at the optimal time. This feature ensures that your Instagram posts go out at a time when you receive the most engagement.

11.  Encourage customer and employee posts

Use branded hashtags to help you organize user-generated content. If you engage in these hashtags and incorporate a UGC strategy, more people will take notice and begin using the hashtags, too.

Your employees can be your strongest advocates as well. Their accounts give a more personal, unfiltered perspective of the company. Remember, people like feeling as if they’re in a secret club. If you reshare from your employees, you’re offering perspectives that your brand normally wouldn’t offer.

12.  Host a fun giveaway contest

Who wouldn’t want to win free stuff? That’s exactly why social media giveaways are so great for boosting your Instagram engagement. They get people to engage with your brand in a way you’ve never seen before.

Whether the contest involves commenting, sharing or contributing a story–you get to drive engagement either way.

That said, your giveaway contest must be strategic and intentional. Make sure to design the rules keeping your goal in mind i.e., boosting engagement. Moreover, the prize should be attractive; it should be valuable enough to get people to participate.

For example, Fenty Beauty hosted a Game Day Giveaway for a chance to win two tickets to the Championship Game. The brand would cover the cost of flights, hotels and ground transportation. As you can expect, this post saw more than 17k Likes and almost 18k comments.

Source

13.  Improve your Instagram hashtags

It’s a well-known fact that using the right hashtags helps you grow your reach. But with that increased reach comes a greater chance of boosting engagement. The more people see your content, the higher the chance that they’ll engage with it.

Use relevant and niche hashtags that will let you tap into the right audience. The goal is to get Instagram to show your content to users who have shown an interest in topics related to that hashtag. So when these users see your content, they’re likely to check it out and engage.

Why a good engagement rate matters on Instagram

So what’s the big deal about Instagram engagement? Check out these key benefits of having a good engagement rate on Instagram.

Improve platform visibility

The Instagram algorithm uses several factors to rank and display content. While relevance is one crucial element, engagement is another major consideration. Even among relevant content, posts that see tons of engagement are more likely to show up in a user’s Explore. So having a good engagement rate is essential to improve your visibility on Instagram.

Attract a new audience

With higher visibility comes an increased chance of attracting a new audience. Instagram will typically show your content to people who are most likely to be interested in it. If these users like your content enough, they may want to check out your profile and even follow you. In other words, a good engagement rate may help you grow your Instagram following.

Boost credibility

To the average Instagram user, a post that has tons of engagement means other people are enjoying it. As such, good engagement serves as social proof and reflects positively on your brand authenticity. People may feel more comfortable trusting your brand because so many others are engaging with it.

Start growing your Instagram engagement

These tips will give you a much-needed engagement boost on Instagram. But a one-off spike in engagement numbers isn’t enough. Make sure you’re following these tips consistently to maintain high levels of engagement.

Sprout’s Instagram integration will help you get started by managing all your comments in one place in a Smart Inbox, freeing up time for you to focus on improving your Instagram engagement.

The post 13 Ways to increase your Instagram engagement rate appeared first on Sprout Social.

Enter: a social media calendar template. Calendar templates allow you to visualize your entire lineup of social content in one location. With a master social calendar in place, you can spend less time ironing out your collaboration kinks and more time creating quality content.

But many calendar templates are too generic. The better alternative? Create your own customized template built for your brand and publishing needs.

This article explains all the essential components you need to create a social media calendar that works. And how upgrading to a tool like Sprout Social can make content planning as easy as a click of a button.

Why you need a social media calendar template for your team

With a template in place, your team can streamline your workflow—from the initial draft to the approved post to measuring success. You can share new post ideas, exchange feedback and house all images, videos and other media assets in one location.

Creating a social media posting calendar template also makes your content development and approval process repeatable. A well-constructed template is customizable and scalable so it can change over time for different publishing needs and campaigns.

For example, let’s say you launch a new TikTok account. Even as you add TikTok posts and media to your existing content calendar, it will still be easy to visualize your entire content lineup at a glance.

Once you start using the template, you can even improve how you measure key performance indicators (KPIs). The template we help you build in this article will track awareness and engagement metrics.

What to include in a social media content calendar template

To make your social media content calendar template effective, include each of the following components.

Copy and media

Your content is a vital part of your social media content calendar template. Include all versions of a post message–optimized for each network (within character count limits, including platform-specific hashtags and using a platform-appropriate tone).

Also add all corresponding media assets. Directly copy and paste or link to images, videos, infographics, memes and GIFs included in your post. Size the media based on each network’s requirements.

Date and time

Include the date, time and time zone each post will go live. This both clarifies your publishing time and helps you stay organized. You might opt to sort your calendar by month or week if you’re publishing a high volume of content.

Links

To simplify publishing, approving and tracking, include your shortened UTM links in your social media calendar template.

Networks and accounts

For each post, label the network it will be published on. Include options like: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube and any other or another channel that might be relevant.

If you manage social accounts for multiple brands, include the name of the brand alongside each post.

Pro tip: Depending on account size and posting cadence, it might be best to create separate calendars for each brand’s social presence you manage. For example, if you’re an agency, creating one calendar per client is optimal for planning and getting feedback.

Campaigns

In your template, indicate if posts are part of a social media campaign or larger campaign at your company. Campaign examples include yearly campaigns, email promotions or product launches.

Grouping posts by campaign makes it easier to sort and report on campaign progress/results.

Collaboration notes and approval steps

To eliminate messy email threads and frantic direct messages, include space for collaboration in your template. Enable back-and-forth communication between teammates, stakeholders and clients for sharing feedback and asking questions.

Also crucial: making approval steps clear. For example, you could include a column that denotes the stage of content development as draft, in review, approved or published, so the relevant people can be looped in at the right production stage.

KPIs

To track and analyze your social results, add key performance metrics to your calendar template. This makes it easy to spot trends and replicate the success of your best performing posts. Choose metrics that are relevant to your unique goals including clicks, likes, shares, comments, mentions, conversions and website traffic.

Key

To make sure your social media content calendar template is easy-to-use, create a color-coordinated key to categorize your content. Categories on your key might include blog posts, webinars and product launches.

The 4 steps you need to create your master social media calendar template

Here is a step-by-step guide to creating your own social media editorial calendar template that can grow with your brand.

1. Add columns

Starting with a blank spreadsheet, add columns for:

• Copy
• Media
• Date
• Time
• Links
• Campaign
• Network
• Account
• Collaboration notes
• Approval stage
• KPIs

2. Add dropdown menus

To save time and make filling out your template easier, add dropdown menus with prefilled options for campaigns, networks, accounts and approval stages.

3. Create a key

Create a color-coded key with labels that match your content categories. You can implement the colors from the key into a new column or change the color of each row.

4. Start adding content

Begin adding content to your social media calendar template to test how compatible it is with your team’s workflow. Continue tweaking the template to suit your unique needs.

A better way to manage your social media calendar templates

Even though social media calendar templates are helpful, they often rely on manual updates that can be tedious and time-consuming.

If you want to remove the need for spreadsheets and simplify your social media content planning, you can easily do so by using a tool like Sprout Social’s shared content calendar. The calendar’s multiple views (including weekly and monthly) allow you to dig into both granular post details and your content strategy’s big picture. It’s an intuitive tool that empowers you to plan, schedule, collaborate and automatically post from a single platform.

Start your free Sprout trial

Here’s an overview of a few of Sprout’s core publishing and scheduling tools designed to make content management easier.

Message scheduling and approval workflows

You can compose and schedule multiple social posts across different profiles and networks simultaneously. Take it a step further by queuing up various posts in advance.

As a part of your publishing process, generate approval workflows to guide the submission, review and approval of messages to simplify collaboration. You’re even able to add and remove external stakeholders so they can review social posts before they’re published (without needing to log in to Sprout). Social media marketers can efficiently manage the entire drafting, approval and publishing process in one place.

Message tagging

With Sprout’s internal tagging tool, it’s easy to group and categorize messages based on content type, campaign, workflow, business objectives and marketing strategies while you’re composing a message. Tags automatically organize content and streamline performance analysis.

Asset library and media integrations

Rather than storing your social media assets in various locations (including your social media posting calendar template), Sprout allows you to create, organize, edit and publish assets from one central location. From your asset library you can manage media and quickly create visually striking social posts.

Sprout integrations enable you to directly add videos and images from tools like Google Drive, Dropbox and Canva to your asset library.

URL tracking

Sprout’s URL tracking capabilities append tracking data to links to easily identify social traffic in Google Analytics and monitor campaigns, referral traffic and conversions from social posts. Links will automatically be defined by the social network, account and the specific post without manually creating parameters.

Start your free Sprout trial

Having a social media calendar template is a non-negotiable for team organization and efficiency. But it isn’t the most effective way to up your social media management game.

By using a tool like Sprout, you can have a single source of truth for creating and maintaining your social posting strategy. Sprout’s shared content calendar saves you time and simplifies your process while simultaneously improving your content performance and audience engagement.

Trial Sprout’s social media publishing calendar and other engagement, analytics and social listening tools for free today.

Start your free Sprout trial

The post The components of a successful social media calendar template appeared first on Sprout Social.

Industry benchmarks provide the context needed to tell a richer story about your social media marketing strategy.

Use data from Sprout’s 2023 Content Benchmarks Report to illuminate opportunities to fine-tune your strategy in a way that resonates with your target audience. Before diving into the data, keep reading to learn more about the metrics, why they matter and how you can use them to make sure that 2023 is your best year yet.

What to measure in 2023: Social media benchmarks by industry

The Content Benchmarks Report analyzed more than 523 million messages from 729,000 public social profiles to pull industry benchmarks on three specific areas: posts published, inbound engagements and outbound engagements.

Here’s a full breakdown of each metric, including tips on how they can support your strategy. Download the report for a full look at the data.

Download the 2023 Content Benchmarks Report

Posts published

Posts published is a straightforward metric. It measures the number of posts published across accounts during a specific period. While this may seem simple, it’s often at the foundation of a successful social media strategy.

Narrowing in on posts published can help you reverse engineer the publishing volume needed to reach certain impressions, engagements and engagement rates. If your social media goals are data-informed, then figuring out how to reach them is just a matter of reviewing your previous performance reports.

In 2022, professional sports organizations shared an average of 26 posts per day, making it the most prolific industry on social when it comes to sharing content.

To be fair, this industry has an edge over the rest. Social content can be sourced from fans, videographers, photographers and—if you’re working with a social-savvy team like the Cleveland Browns—even players.

You can still replicate this strategy even if you’re not a major sports team. Next time your business has something fun on the calendar, look at the event through a social-first lens to get more mileage out of your presence.

Inbound engagements

In this report, you’ll find two different inbound social media engagement benchmarks: average inbound engagements on content per day and average daily inbound engagements per post.

Breaking these numbers down by day and post helps validate the success of your overall strategy and individual posts. This granularity is key to measuring the success of big swings in your social creative and copy.

However, a swell of engagement isn’t always a good thing. In the best-case scenario, a surge in comments could mean that a post is sparking conversation. It could also mean that a crisis is taking place, and customers are reaching out on social media for support.

When creating social media reports, be sure to provide the necessary context around engagement spikes and dips. Use Sprout’s Custom Report Builder, you can embed performance details directly in your social performance dashboard using a Text Asset widget.

This all contributes to a more audience-centric understanding of what makes an effective social presence. Having this data at the ready can help you become more intentional about the individual posts that make up your strategy. It can also help you politely refute any pesky “just post this” requests.

Outbound engagements

In 2023, outbound engagements will make or break your social strategy.

People are flocking to closed communities and vertical networks for a more tailored online experience. To remain competitive in this new era of social, brands will have to double down on proactive marketing. Building 1:1 relationships on social isn’t a trick for overnight growth, but it is a controllable, sustainable path toward long-term rewards.

This marks a sizable shift in traditional brand social strategies. In 2022, the average number of outbound engagements was just 2 per day across all industries, with just 5 out of the 19 industries analyzed reaching an average of 4 or more.

The good news? These numbers suggest that outbound engagement will be a surefire way to outpace your competition over the next 12 months and beyond.

As you plan your social media content calendar, leave placeholders for proactive engagement opportunities. Jump into the conversations that matter to your audience, whether that be at the industry or cultural level. It’s unexpected, which is what makes it so effective.

Social media benchmarking across social networks

How much time does your brand dedicate to each social platform? If you’re still trying to figure out how frequently you should be posting, commenting and engaging, these social media benchmarks can help you set the pace.

Facebook benchmarks

Across all industries, brands publish an average of 5 Facebook posts per day. The sectors that go furthest beyond this average include professional sports (9), media/entertainment (8) and advertising/marketing (8).

When it comes to engagement, brands receive an average of 28 comments and 7 direct messages per day on the network. Professional sports organizations and media companies welcome the most comments per day, which makes sense considering their frequent posting on the network.

Alternatively, companies in the travel and tourism industry receive 36 comments per day despite maintaining an average posting volume (5). This volume shows the value of monitoring your social inbox, regardless of whether a specific network is a focus on your social content calendar.

Instagram benchmarks

The total number of Instagram posts per day has taken a dip in recent years, suggesting that brands are favoring Stories over traditional grid posts. In 2022, brands only published once per day on average on the network.

There are, of course, some outliers. Industries that are likely to post more often include professional sports (3), retail (2) and consumer products (2).

While brands may post more infrequently, their fans are more active than ever. The average brand is tagged in five photos and four captions per day. If your social media strategy relies on user-generated content, then Instagram is the place to be.

Data shows that consumers are also favoring Instagram Direct Messages to get in contact with their favorite companies. Brands receive 27 Instagram DMs per day on average. Industries that exceed that average include travel and tourism (36), health and wellness (30) and internet and technology (29).

Twitter benchmarks

On Twitter, brands across industries send an average of 3 posts per day. Sectors posting more than this average include professional sports (13) and advertising/marketing (6).

Twitter offers multiple unique avenues for engagement. Quote Tweets and Retweets can be a way for audience members to boost brand content while making their own contributions to the conversation.

Across all industries, brands received an average of 14 Retweets and 3 Quote Tweets per day. Industries receiving a higher number of Retweets than average were professional sports (109), media and entertainment (35), and nonprofit (15). Industries with a lower-than-average number of Retweets were automotive (3), staffing and recruiting (2), and real estate (1).

On Twitter, @mentions allow brands and audiences to engage publicly on the feed. On top of that, audiences regularly use Twitter DMs for more extended conversations, such as customer care requests. Our research shows that brands receive an average of 26 @mentions and 2 DMs daily on the network.

Benefits of social media engagement benchmarks

Benchmarks can turn last year’s data into this year’s advantage. Now that you have new insights at your fingertips, here are three ways you can use social media engagement benchmarks to level up your strategy:

1. Industry benchmarks serve as inspiration

Every industry has its own unique approach to social media. If you want to revamp your social media marketing strategy, looking beyond your competitors can be the first step to your next game-changing campaign.

Use industry benchmarks to find out which brands outpace the rest when it comes to the metrics listed above. As you look through their social presences, try to identify what they’re doing differently and how your brand can emulate them. This is a great way to come up with innovative ideas that bring something new to your target audience.

2. Competitive benchmarks give your performance context

Understanding how your brand stacks up against competitors can help you tell a richer story with your performance data. With competitive benchmarking, you can better translate your efforts for business stakeholders who may not know what social media success looks like.

With Sprout, you can use network-specific competitor reports to compare your performance with your top business rivals. These social competitive analysis reports offer insights on publishing behavior, fan growth and engagement so you create tailored benchmarks around the metrics that matter.

3. Personal benchmarks inform your immediate goals

Your personal benchmarks should be your go-to resource for creating actionable goals. While industry social media benchmarks can give your performance color, your brand’s own year-over-year benchmarks tell the story of your growth over time.

This is especially meaningful for brands piloting new social strategies or adopting a new network presence.

Establishing personal benchmark data starts with annual reports. Your year-over-year performance data is critical to identifying strengths and weaknesses in your social media strategy. These insights should be the core reasoning behind your goals for the upcoming year.

Month-over-month benchmarks, on the other hand, will help you gauge progress on specific campaigns so you can identify quick wins or necessary pivots. These benchmarks will also help ensure that you’re pacing well on social media KPIs.

To gather the data needed for these reports, identify the metrics that matter most to your brand and create a spreadsheet to track how they’re pacing by month. Eventually, you’ll collect enough data to inform annual benchmarks.

However, If you want to collect benchmark data on the fly, brands using Spout’s Premium Analytics can set custom date range comparisons to see how specific metrics are trending month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

Let your social media benchmarks guide the way

Now that you know where to start with industry, competitive and personal benchmarks, you have everything you need to optimize your strategy for maximum success.

Once you have your key objectives in place, you can take this interactive content mix assessment. The quiz will provide a visual breakdown on the themes that should be your top priority, depending on your goals. 

The post Social media benchmarks by industry in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.