If you run a business, be it online or offline you know that advertising is key to getting your brand established.  There is no shortage of place to advertise your business and most of them want your hard earned cash.  If your business is new or you simply don’t have the budget, there are still places where you can get your business advertised for free.

One of the best places to build your brand is still on Facebook.  Yes, the Facebook algorithm has changed and it’s harder now to expand your organic reach but not impossible.  Facebook can drastically boost the amount of traffic that goes to your website, but posting whenever is not the formula for success.  That being said when is it better to post?  Weekends when everyone is at home or during the week after dinner when people are just kicking back and surfing the net?  Do you know the best time to post on Facebook, for that matter, were you even aware that sometimes are better than others to increase your reach.  Here are the optimum times to post on Facebook.

Research has Been Done

Everybody and their marketing dog has done research on when the best time to post to your Facebook page, by everybody that includes Huffington Post, Quicksprout, and Fast Company.  They have all done research on social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest just to name a few.  For simplicity, we’ll start with Facebook since it is the oldest and most used social network.  Each social network has their own ideal time to post since the audiences can be very different.  This is just one of the reasons to work with a digital marketing agency to help with social campaigns.

The Optimum Times to Post on Facebook

People login to Facebook from absolutely everywhere, mobile, tablet and desktops and they are doing it from home, at work, and on the go.  According to one study between 8 am and 8 pm is the worst time to post content.  The best time to post your content is on Wednesday afternoons at 3 pm.  However, your engagement will be better on Thursdays and Fridays with engagement increasing as much as 20%.  And yes, the weekends are good too, post between 12-1 on both Saturdays and Sundays.  Here is a video outlining when you should schedule your posts.

These results were put together from data collected from a variety of companies and your results may be different.  You can use services like HootSuite and schedule your posts for all of these “ideal” times and see what has the best engagement.  It will give you a starting point for what works with your audience.