If you’ve been managing any social media campaign, you’ve probably asked yourself this question a million times. You’ve probably heard that posting times are irrelevant now, with behavior-based algorithms having been rolled out among most platforms. While it is true that behavior-based algorithms have affected optimal posting times, it’s ignorant to think that when you launch your content does not affect your engagement rates, visibility, or the number of impressions generated. Are all hours and minutes equal in the eyes of the algorithm? The short answer is “no.” Let’s talk about why.

Is There Really a “Best” Time to Post? 

While most newsfeed algorithms are behavior-based, a few platforms take “recency” into consideration due to social media trends moving so quickly. In-the-moment updates and news are important in gauging whether or not your content should be shown to an audience, so it makes sense that they consider recency. 

As you might have guessed, there’s no one “right answer” or a “one-size-fits-all answer” to this question. The most important thing you can do when determining what time of day to launch your content, is to pay attention to your own analytics. Every target audience is different, and beyond that, every platform is different too. 

While you can apply some generalizations, like “the best time to post across industries is 9 a.m., when people are just starting work and going online for the first time” (Hubspot), it’s essential to understand that your followers could be online at a different time based on their personal attributes. 

If your target audience is mothers with young children, 9 a.m. might not be when they’re active online. They’re likely getting their kids set up for the day, so they may not be on social media until the youngsters go down for their mid-morning nap around 11 a.m. If you’re posting your content at 9 a.m., you could be missing that key audience. 

This is where your social media analytics will come into play. You need to monitor your content and pay close attention to when your audience is online and interacting with your content. You may be surprised to find out when your audience is genuinely online. 

How Do I Find Out When My Audience is Active on Social Media? 

Facebook

Facebook makes it relatively easy to figure this out. When looking at your Facebook Page, you’ll see a list of options on the left-hand side. First, you’ll select the option titled “Insights.” From there, you’ll select “Posts.” Then, you’ll see a graph at the top of the page detailing when your audience is most active. For those that are visual learners, here’s a step-by-step:

Based on the data provided above, we can see a few key points:

• Our audience is most active on Sundays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
• Our audience is most active between the times of 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.
• Our audience is also reasonably active between the times of 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. 

After looking at this data, we should optimize our content to launch between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. throughout the week. If we wanted to switch things up, we could also launch our content between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. This will help our campaign connect with most of our audience as it may be different target audiences who are active in the evening hours versus the engaged audience in the morning hours.

Instagram

When looking at your Instagram profile’s main screen (hint: make sure your profile is converted to a Business Profile), click on the “Insights” button. From there, ensure you’re looking at a 30-day overview as 7-day analytics can provide a false positive or a false negative. The more data you’re taking into consideration, the better. Select “See All” next to the “Your Audience” section. Then, scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll be able to see the Hours or Days your audience is most active. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown for my visual learners:

In reviewing the analytics from our Instagram profile, here are a few key takeaways:

• In terms of daily activity, our audience is pretty even across the board. There isn’t a specific day that stands out significantly. 
• Our audience is most active between the hours of 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. across the board. 

When optimizing our Instagram content, it would serve us well to launch our content within that time frame each day. This will capture the bulk of our audience. In looking at the last graphic, it appears our audience is equally as active around 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. as well, so if we wanted to test our strategy against itself, we could choose one of those times to post as well. Like our Facebook strategy, it’s essential to consider multiple audience groups and determine which posting strategy captures your most active audience. 

This is just two out of the many social media platforms that exist now, so you can imagine it takes a significant amount of time and effort to track peak activity times across multiple platforms. As an agency, we have access to various tools that allow us to compile, track, and present this data to you, along with a comprehensive social media marketing strategy that takes all of this (and more) into consideration. If you’re looking to streamline your social media strategy, email us at info@theadleaf.com or call us at 321-255-0900 to get started with your unique social media strategy today. 

If you are interested in social media marketing, then it’s essential that you develop an effective social strategy. The terms “bought” or “paid” regarding social media marketing can have a somewhat bad reputation. When these terms are present, they will often refer to a business with a large social media following but had a majority of their follows purchased through automated algorithms. This is generally looked down upon, especially if you are trying to promote your business.

However, the term “paid social” actually means something entirely different and might even be a marketing strategy that The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm LLC. can help implement for you.

Organic vs. Paid Social Strategy

If you are familiar with SEO or work with our SEO specialists for your business, you already know what organic and paid socials are like. Organic social consists of any type of activity on social media that does not have a paid advertising function. On the other hand, paid socials use advertising programs on popular social media websites to boost a page’s traffic. The ideal social media strategy uses both organic and paid socials to achieve the best results possible.

Organic Social Strategy Tips

Here are some of the ways our marketing experts at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm LLC. recommend building your organic social following.

• Make sure your best-performing post is immediately visible
• Comment on similar pages and posts to yours
• Develop a social media voice that can distinguish you from your competition

Paid Social Strategy Tips

Are you starting to see an improvement with your organic social statistics? Try and boost those engagements more with paid social activity! Here are some tips you can use to draw in new potential customers.

• Make unique social media posts explicitly used for promotion
• Promote new products or offers frequently
• Publish content based on the current needs and interests of your target audience

Working with The AD Leaf

As a local business ourselves, we understand that you might have a limited amount of time to work on boosting your organic and paid social media presence. After all, you have a lot on your plate as you work to expand your business. That is why our social media strategists here at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm LLC. can do the work for you! We will create perfect social media posts and will regularly update you with information about user engagement. 

Are you ready to take your social media presence to the next level? Call The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm LLC. at 321-255-0900 to schedule a free consultation!

Marketing and the Facebook Algorithm

It’s pretty common knowledge that trends in social media are constantly changing, but how much do you know about the algorithms that determine what’s seen and who sees it? Let’s use Facebook as an example. While it would certainly make the lives of social media coordinators much easier, there’s no one set algorithm that Facebook uses. There are common denominators and things that affect algorithms as a whole– like elections–, but every single user has their own unique algorithm that’s generated by what they commonly interact with and who is paying to put their content in front of them. The average reach for an organic post hovers around 5% and drops more with each passing month. As with most things in business and marketing, paid ads are king.

How Algorithms Affect Marketing

Every time you log in to Facebook and check out your feed, your algorithm is updated based on what posts you’re interacting with, who you’ve chosen to “see first” on your feed, your settings, and several other factors. Up until recently, there was also a lot of information being taken from Facebook partners that helped both ad and organic algorithms hone in on their audience on a very granular level. On top of keeping up to date with normal algorithm changes, Facebook users and managers are now coming face-to-face with Apple’s new security policy, allowing users to opt-out of data sharing that companies use to target their ads.

Facebook Algorithm Tracking

If you’re an iPhone owner, you’ve likely already seen the popup message on many of your apps that allows you to opt-out of a lot of the information sharing that had been occurring. While this limits ad targeting in some industries, it’s not completely stripping away the carefully crafted audiences many rely on to bring in leads. However, without the behind-the-scenes know-how of targeting and how to adjust to similar targets that are still available, you’re likely to see a large decrease in leads. This skillset is just one of the many reasons it’s so important to have a trained social media specialist on your team.

Defeating the Facebook Algorithm

For a novice, mastering algorithms is an overwhelming task, and without the proper training and know-how, it’s a real guessing game. It’s also time-consuming to monitor the latest news and updates and tweak your posting schedule and ads accordingly. That’s where we step in! The AD Leaf has a full team of highly trained and skilled social media coordinators that are always up to date on all things social media. Put your time and energy toward your business and let us handle the rest!

 

Why You Need Great Social Media Content

So, you’ve committed to creating social media content. You’re ready to kick off your social media marketing strategy, and you’re going to kill it!

There’s only one problem. What are you going to post?

Social media is all about engagement. If your social media content is stale and lifeless, people won’t interact. We all know sharing is caring! If your audience doesn’t care about what you’re posting, they won’t share it. They won’t repost, retweet, like, comment, or follow either!

So how can you get that engagement? With valuable content, of course!

Social Media Science

There’s a science behind what people will or won’t share on social media. Studies have shown that a majority of people sharing content do so because they are entertained, and want to entertain their friends. Another motivation? Information. People like to educate themselves, and will share content that will be useful to their friends and followers. From a psychological standpoint, it’s simple: people want to look good. People are more inclined to share interesting and engaging content because it makes THEM look interesting and engaging. What’s more, great content helps people to connect with and even help their friends, family and followers.

So, now that we know what people share, what kind of content is best?

Great Social Media Content Makes You Feel Something

Feelings are a part of daily life for everyone, so it makes sense that content that invokes an emotional response will get a good reaction. But which emotions are the best ones to target? Studies have shown that positive content tends to get more shares than negative content. Furthermore, laughter and amusement are at the top of the list. So, give people something to laugh about!

Don’t Forget the Visuals

We all know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images tell stories, and people love storytelling! Content that includes visuals gets 94% more views than content without. That’s because the brain processes things visually. If you want to draw your audience’s eye, images are the way to do it.

When it comes to your images, size matters. Make sure you’re posting images of a high enough resolution that they’ll show up clear and sharp. Nobody likes blurry, stretched out images. Not sure where to get images to post? The best ones are the ones you take yourself! If that’s not an option, stock images can work well, too.

Attention is Everything

We live in an age of pocket-sized information. If your content isn’t immediate eye-catching, people will scroll on by. It’s easier and faster to absorb information in bite-sized pieces. Lists and infographics are the way to go! When you put things in list format, people know exactly what they’re getting when they click the link. Lists and infographics get shared more than other types of content, so they’re a great tool for engagement! Infographics are also easy to make with tools like Canva, Vizualize, and more. If you don’t want to make one, find one to share.

Who hasn’t clicked through to find out what kind of pizza matches their personality? Interactive content like quizzes are great for interaction and engagement! The benefit of interactive content is that it encourages users to engage instead of just scrolling past. Luckily, creating quizzes, polls, and other interactive content is a breeze. There are many tools made just for that.

Hashtags Get You Found

There’s a hashtag for every day. #MotivationMonday. #ThrowbackThursday. #FlashbackFriday. Daily themes are a great way to engage! This trend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so get on board. Similarly, there’s a wacky holiday for almost every day, week and month as well. Did you know there are national food holidays almost every day? With a little pre-planning, you can have some great content prepared to celebrate these observances.

Want to know the best way to engage with your audience? Post THEIR content. Your best salespeople are the people who are using your products and services and talking about the experience. Take GoPro for example. What better way to sell their product than show you ALL the ways in which it can be used, and ALL the videos it can take? Every GoPro user can be a content creator. That gives GoPro unlimited resources to showcase exactly what their product is capable of.

Great Social Media Content Builds Connections

Did you notice something similar about all of these pieces? That’s right, none of them are links to your business website!

That doesn’t mean you can’t ever post about your business! In fact, there are times when that’s beneficial.

If you’ve got information that is relevant, educational, engaging and everything we’ve talked about, post it! Just don’t drown your audience in it, because nobody likes when people talk about themselves all the time.

It’s called social media for a reason. People want to connect! They want to engage with causes they care about, they want to support and help their friends and families, and they want to feel and share those feelings. Make your page a place where they can do just that!