Top 5 Tools to Determine the Best Time to Post on Social Media

When it comes to social media, timing is everything. These 5 tools will help you determine the best time to post on social media for your business.

Highlights:

Social media is playing an increasing role in B2B purchasing decisions.
Even if you’re posting great content, if you’re doing it at the wrong times, you’re losing out.
Social media management tools can help you understand your audience and make informed decisions about post timing.

If you’re a B2B marketer, chances are, you’re well aware of the importance of social media. But since, as BuzzFeed’s Jonathan Perelman famously put it, “Content is king, but distribution is queen, and she wears the pants,” simply posting your content is only half the battle. Knowing the best time to post on social media is nearly as important as what you post.

It’s difficult to overstate importance of an effective social media strategy. Not only do 78% of marketers who have used social media for 2 years or more report increased traffic to their websites, but B2B decision-makers increasingly report that they are influenced by social media when purchasing. According to Demand Gen’s 2018 B2B Buyers Survey Report, more than half (54%) of all B2B buyers rely on social media to research vendor solutions.

Not only do 78% of marketers who have used social media for 2 years or more report increased traffic to their websites, but B2B decision-makers increasingly report that they are influenced by social media when purchasing. Click To Tweet

These are powerful numbers, and all signs point to social media playing an ever-increasing role in the B2B buyer’s journey. For your social media content to pack the biggest punch, you need to be posting at the optimal times. Luckily, there are a plethora of social media management tools that can help you refine your strategy. Here are our 5 favorite tools for determining the best time to post on social media for B2B brands.

5 tools for determining the best time to post on social media

1) Google Analytics

This robust analytical tool is among the most popular all-around web tools for B2B businesses, and for good reason. Google Analytics can help you determine how your audience is interacting with all your digital assets, and it offers some great insights about social media in particular. You can create various types of custom reports based on your business’ goals and results. We recommend three in particular to help you find the best time to post on social media:

Best Days to Post on Social Media
Best Time to Post on Social Network by Hour
Social Media Traffic by Date and Hour

2) Buffer

A company with an impressive record when it comes to social media management, Buffer’s platform lets you easily manage all your social media platforms. Like its biggest rival, Hootsuite (more on that soon), Buffer offers among its features some useful insights for determining ideal post timing and frequency. For example, it analyzes follower activity and suggests the perfect moments to post on each social media platform.

3) Hootsuite

Hootsuite has been one of our favorite tools for a long time, and it truly offers a rich variety of features and insights to maximize the effectiveness of your digital assets. Not only is it effective at scheduling social media posts, it’s an excellent tool for measuring social media ROI — no easy task! Hootsuite’s AutoSchedule feature is one of its best assets. For each piece of content you plan to post on social media, it analyzes when similar content performed best in the past and determines the optimal post time. In addition, it considers the platform and publishes based on audience engagement on each network.

4) Followerwonk

Followerwonk is new to our list, and it’s different from most social media management tools. While it doesn’t offer the kind of scheduling and management features as the other platforms on our list, what it does do extremely well is help you gain valuable insights and understanding of your audience. For example, Followerwonk lets you analyze your current Twitter followers by things like location, post timing, engagement, accounts they follow, and more, as well as contrast those relationships with your competitors. Understanding your followers at this level will not only help you determine when your business should post on social media, but will allow you to analyze and adjust your strategy in all kinds of ways.

5) SproutSocial

Another perennial favorite, SproutSocial offers the whole menu of social media management tools: everything from monitoring to scheduling to analytics. The customized dashboard gives you a bird’s eye overview of how your social media channels are performing. You can find deeper insights, including individual statistics on each post, and customer data like gender, age, and location demographics. The platform’s ViralPost technology boasts impressive results at finding the best time to share your content.

Figuring out the best time to post on social media for your business is no easy task, but it’s key to getting your content to reach your target audience. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and any one, or a combination, of these tools can help you understand your audience better and get your content out to them at the right times.