Is it Better to Post Peak or Off-Peak Hours on Facebook?

If I dollar for every article I’ve read over the last year or two about what the best time of the day is to post to Facebook… well, I’d have a lot of dollars!

There are lots of different theories about why posting certain times of the day work better than others, but either way, it’s an important goal to aim for. With Facebook organic reach down to about 6%, you want your posts to go as far as you can possibly get them to go.

So, while many articles will give you a specific time of day to post, I think this time changes based on your page. The only way to really know what works or what won’t is to dig into your analytics.

The good news is, Facebook gives good data. Insights gives us tons of detail.

All you need to do is login to your page, and then find “Insights.” It’s the fourth tab over from the left. You’ll get another set of tabs when you open it, and you want to select “Posts.” You’ll then see a cool chart that shows you when the people that like your page are on Facebook. It looks like the one above, except without me doodling on it.

Now, you have two options, here. You can look at your chart, and see what are the times when most people are online. This seems like the best time to post, right? The majority of the people that like your page are there–a better chance they will see your stuff?

Not necessarily. During those peak times (for me, 1 and 8 pm), there is a lot more competition–meaning people with pages (like you) who are smart (like you) are also doing this research, and posting at peak times.

So, some of the stuff I’ve been reading has recommended posting at off-peak times–when there is less competition.

So I decided to test this theory–with data!

For a week, I posted to my page twice a day, once a peak times (around 1 pm) and once at off-peak times (between 2 and 4 am).

Here’s my raw data. These numbers are organic reach:

Also, I made a graph, because, you know, I’m nerdy like that:

So, according to my research, you should not post at off-peak times, because posting at peak times is going to get you a bigger reach.

Have you had any experience with posting at off-peak times? And was it a positive one, or a negative one?