Analyze Twitter Data to Find the Best Times to Tweet
Buffer, a popular social media management tool, published its findings for the best time of day to tweet. The findings were based on Twitter research using data collected over a period of several years from almost five million tweets across 10,000 profiles. All time zones were taken into consideration, looking at the most popular time to tweet, the best time to get clicks, the best time for likes and retweets, and the best time for overall engagement. CoSchedule, another popular social media management tool, also published its own findings on the best time of day to tweet using a combination of its data plus data taken from over a dozen other sources, including Buffer. The study goes beyond Twitter to include the best times for Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If You Want to Tweet When Everyone Else Is
According to Buffer’s data, the most popular time to tweet, regardless of where you are in the world, is:
Between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.
According to CoSchedule’s data, the best time is:
Between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. (especially on weekdays).Right around 5:00 p.m. (especially on weekdays).
Your tweets won’t necessarily be seen as easily during this time due to the higher volume of tweets competing for attention. Your tweets might have a better chance of being seen when tweet volume is lower. According to Buffer, this is between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.
If Your Goal Is to Maximize Clickthroughs
According to Buffer’s data, when you’re tweeting links to send followers to somewhere, you should aim to tweet:
Between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.Specifically at 12:00 p.m.Between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
According to CoSchedule’s data, you should tweet:
Specifically at 12:00 p.m.Right around 3:00 p.m.Between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Midday seems to be a winning time slot here, but don’t assume that those low tweet volume hours won’t do anything for you. Volume is expectantly low in the wee hours of the morning, which essentially maximizes your chances of getting your tweets seen by those who are awake or waking up soon.
If Your Goal Is to Maximize Engagement
Getting as many likes and retweets as possible might be important for your brand or business. That means, according to Buffer’s data, you’ll want to tweet:
Between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. (especially if your audience is mostly based in the U.S.).
According to CoSchedule’s data, you should tweet:
Between 12:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (specifically for retweets).
The data from Buffer and CoSchedule conflict in this area, so the timeframe you could tweet for engagement is huge. Buffer looked at over one million tweets coming from U.S.-based accounts and concluded that later evening hours were best for engagement. CoSchedule reported results that were mixed according to the different sources it looked at. Digital marketing guru Neil Patel said that tweeting at 5:00 p.m. results in the most retweets. Ell & Co. found the best retweet results could be seen between the hours of noon to 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The Huffington Post said that maximum retweets occur between noon and 5:00 p.m. Your best bet is to tweet at certain times and track when engagement seems to be the highest.
If You Want More Clicks Plus More Engagement
If you just want your Twitter followers to do anything at all—click, retweet, like, or reply—Buffer’s data suggests sending your tweets:
Between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.
According to CoSchedule’s data, you should tweet:
Specifically at 12:00 p.m.Around 3:00 p.m.Between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
The data based on the two studies conflict with each other in the area of clicks and engagement together, with Buffer saying nighttime is best and CoSchedule saying daytime hours are best. Buffer says that the highest amount of engagement occurs in the middle of the night, between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m—coinciding with when volume is low. Clicks plus engagement per tweet is at its lowest during traditional work hours between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. CoSchedule found that both retweets and clickthroughs were shown to be maximized during the day. Social media superstar Dustin Stout also advised against tweeting overnight, saying that the worst times to tweet were between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.
An Important Note
If you were surprised to find out how different these findings can be based on where they’ve come from, you’re not alone. Keep in mind that these numbers don’t necessarily tell the whole story and have also been averaged out. Buffer added a note pointing out that the number of followers of a particular account can influence clicks and engagement. Looking at the median (the middle number of all the numbers) rather than the mean (the average of all the numbers) may have turned up more accurate results if so many tweets included in the dataset didn’t have such little engagement. Types of content, the day of the week, and even messaging also play important roles here. These were not accounted for in the study.
Use These Times As Reference Points for Experimentation
There’s no guarantee that you’ll get the most clicks, retweets, likes, or new followers if you tweet between the timeframes concluded from the two studies mentioned above. Your results will vary depending on the content you put out, who your followers are, their demographics, their jobs, where they’re located, your relationship with them, and so on. If most of your followers are 9-to-5 workers living in the Eastern U.S. time zone, tweeting at 2:00 a.m. ET on a weekday may not work out for you. On the other hand, if you target college kids on Twitter, tweeting late or early in the morning may bring up better results. Keep the findings from this study in mind, and use them to experiment with your Twitter strategy. Do your investigative work based on your brand and audience, and you’ll uncover valuable information about your followers’ tweeting habits over time.
