Clients and seminar attendees frequently ask us when the best time to send email and post social media content is. The answer often depends on the business and the target market, but data have been released that reveal timing patterns of email and social media engagement. We recently participated in a HubSpot webinar discussing this very topic. Here are seven valuable suggestions.

Email:

1. Email at night and over the weekends. While a majority of people surveyed said they check their email in the morning, more than seventy percent of participants stated they still check email at night and during the weekends. Therefore, there is a good chance an email sent outside of regular office hours will be read.

2. Email early in the morning for optimal click-through rates. Data show 5:00 to 8:00a.m. is when people click through email links the most. Try sending emails before the workday starts so it is in people’s inboxes before they start getting bombarded with other messages.

3. Send email newsletters soon after subscribers sign up for them. People are most interested in receiving content soon after they subscribe to an email list. Capitalize on this by getting emails out to new subscribers immediately after they sign up, and before they lose interest.

Social Media:

1. Post outside of office hours. Data show 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. is the most popular time for retweets while 4 a.m., 7 a.m., 11 p.m., and 5 p.m. are the four best times for Facebook engagement. Many businesses post only during office hours. Try mixing it up to reach different audiences.

2. Post more later in the week. According to Buddy Media, social media engagement is eighteen percent higher on Thursdays and Fridays than the rest of the week. As people’s mindsets prepare for the weekend, they are taking the time to stop work and see what’s going on in the social media world.

3. Don’t be afraid to post on the weekends. There is no dip in tweet click-through rates on the weekends. Data show that there is just as much Twitter activity on the weekends as there is during the week. On Facebook, sharing increases on the weekends. This may be because many companies block Facebook at work. The bottom line is that there is activity on these two social media sites during the weekend. Try posting on Saturdays and Sundays to get your message exposed.

4. Post more. As more people start to use Twitter, there are more options for people to follow, meaning users are seeing more tweets in their feeds. Tweeting more may help make messages more visible. However, be careful not to tweet too much about the same subject. While tweeting a link to an article a couple times with a different message will increase the exposure of that link, tweeting the same link multiple times in a short period of time may result in users ignoring your content. On Facebook, limit posts to one or two a day. Since status etiquette is different on Facebook than on Twitter, it is much easier to flood users’ news feeds, meaning multiple posts can annoy people easier than multiple posts on Twitter.

It is important to keep in mind that these takeaways are benchmarks. This timing may not work for everyone. We encourage users to experiment with the timing of emails and social media posts to find an optimal time that works for their target market.

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