If you are a user of social media (and, well, you probably are), you might have wondered when the best time to post something is, and get the most engagement possible with it.<\/p>\n
According to a scientific research published by the Journal of Consumer Research<\/strong><\/a>, time really matters when it comes to the type of content you post. To start, it’s true that the first hour of your post is when you get around 50% of the engagement\u2014so you better work to catch people’s attention as soon as possible.<\/p>\n The research took place only on Twitter, but the outcomes might give you good hints for application in other channels like email or Instagram.<\/p>\n The research explains that content on social media can be sorted in two different ways:<\/p>\n And, according to data, Virtue content is more likely to get higher engagement in the morning, while in the evening Vice content will bring better results.<\/p>\n The same happens on the weekends, when most people are more disconnected from work.<\/p>\n Our concentration decreases as we get tired. So it will be easier to read, understand and be more attracted to topics that are more complex in the morning. <\/p>\n At the same time, these topics might help us somehow during the day, like a report<\/a>, or an article about finance or marketing.<\/p>\n By the end of the day, when we have already done a bunch of stuff, our concentration is not the same as it was in the early morning. We are tired and willing to get gratification, (that’s why a happy hour always seems to be a good idea) which makes us act more impulsively. <\/p>\n This helps us understand why Vice content can get better results at the end of the day rather than dense Virtue content.<\/p>\n First of all, knowing who you are producing for is a must on every content marketing strategy. It is very important to understand your audience. So, having a persona helps you get a clearer view of who might be your target audience and then, what the type of content they are interested in is. If you need help creating a persona, check out our Persona Generator<\/a>.<\/p>\n But honestly, even the fanciest persona sketches won’t save you if you ignore the reality of your followers\u2019 habits. Sometimes people check their feeds on random lunch breaks, or they’re scrolling in bed avoiding sleep (don\u2019t judge, almost all of us do it). What I\u2019ve found is that it helps to poke around in your post analytics from time to time and actually see when those spikes are happening\u2014sometimes they don\u2019t line up with the classic \u201cbest time\u201d advice. Patterns, sure, but you might spot weird exceptions that are pure gold.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re working with a team, throw your theories around before you lock yourself into some rigid posting calendar. A bit of back-and-forth helps weed out wishful thinking\u2014like believing a motivational thread will magically take off at midnight on a Sunday. People\u2019s behavior is messy and changes from year to year. In 2025, we’re seeing more folks online late at night than before, and honestly, nobody can explain it beyond \u201clife got weird.\u201d Just a reminder: flexibility in testing and a splash of skepticism go a lot further than copy-pasting what worked last year.<\/p>\n Second, plan your actions throughout the week\/month. Planning your moves is essential to having a structured way of setting up when each post will be made and keeping it all organized, so you will not miss a date. <\/p>\n You can use a calendar, a simple spreadsheet or any other platform to do so. If you want it all even easier, you can download our Marketing Planning Bundle<\/a>.<\/p>\n As we have seen, we can create different types of content based on our persona and the time of the day we are posting it. So you can think of different possibilities for the content you want to create. Always keep in mind the main goal of your post when planning it. <\/p>\n Now you know that if it is a rich material, you should plan the launch for a morning, but if you are just giving general tips or a more extrovert topic, you better post it in the evening. <\/p>\n Last but not least, keep your eyes on the numbers. Follow up the performance of your posts and try to understand the patterns on the data. This way, you see when and which posts are performing the best and how to improve your strategy.<\/p>\n If you liked this article and want to keep up to date with the main trends of Marketing and Business every week, I strongly recommend that you also sign up to our newsletter <\/strong>below.<\/p>\n\n
Why does it happen?<\/h2>\n
How to apply this on a daily basis with your social media strategy?<\/h2>\n