This past spring, we published the best times to post on social media. The post was so popular that we decided to look at the times of peak engagement during the holidays. Holidays are full of recipe searching, gift shopping, and decorating madness––all of which we witnessed in the clicks and shares across our network. That means your audience is actively engaged, but when and where?
We looked at this year’s peak engagement times for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest during November 17 through December 7. In our research, kept in mind the surge of online traffic many sites experienced during Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic. All the times listed here are in U.S. Eastern Time.
Shares in the Morning, Clicks in the Afternoon
People are sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn mostly in the mornings, but are generally more likely to click on content within these services in the afternoon beginning at 3PM. Pinterest users both share and click content as they unwind at night, starting at 8PM.
| Shares | 10AM-12PM | 11AM-12PM | 10AM-12PM | 3PM-4PM |
| Clicks | 3PM-5PM | 3PM-4PM | 3PM-4PM | 8PM-11PM |
Notice that these engagement times don’t vary drastically from the top click and share times we saw in the spring.
Engage Your Audience During Peak Times
Combining clicks and shares, these are the peak days and times for engagement on each network. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all peak in the morning, while the Pinterest peak is Tuesday afternoons.
| Clicks & Shares | Wednesdays, 10AM-11AM |
Tuesdays, 11AM-12PM |
Mondays, 11AM-12PM |
Tuesdays, 4PM-5PM |
The handy infographic at the top has this info ready for you! Just right-click and save it to your desktop so you have it handy before your next Tweet!
Weekend Peak Engagement Times
Peak engagement times for all these social networks fall on weekdays, but we still see a lot of activity happening on the weekends. In fact, there was a similar pattern for weekend engagement. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn engagement tends to occur in the late morning and early afternoon, while Pinterest engagement comes later in the afternoon.
| Clicks & Shares | 12PM-2PM | 10AM-12PM | 11AM-1PM | 3PM-5PM |
Your takeaway here: know that your audience is busy prepping and planning for parties, events, and time with family and friends during the winter holidays. So leverage this data, and put these peak engagement times to the test. Start by targeting your audience and getting to know your their habits so you can reach out to them at the right time.
Happy holidays!