How to Know When Your Readers Are Online

You’ve heard me say that when it comes to boosting visibility on social media, engagement is the name of the game.

One of the many ways to boost engagement is knowing when your readers are online. You have a better chance of them engaging with your posts (liking, commenting, and sharing) when they see your posts pop up in real time while they are using the app, as opposed to them possibly scrolling right past your post in their feed hours later. 

You may have seen some infographics or articles with “suggestions” for the best time of day to post. But since your audience is unique, you need to know when your specific followers are on social media. 

Let’s start with finding out when your followers are using Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, you will need to switch your profile to a business account (which is free) so you can access the Insights analytics.

Click the hamburger icon at the top righthand corner of your profile.

Next, select the “Insights” options. 

Go to the “Audience” section and at the bottom you will see a graph showing what time works best for each day. You can click through and see the best time for every day of the week.

Your ideal activity time might be the same every day, or it might be slightly different for each day. Whatever it is, you can put this information in your social media scheduling tool so your posts are published at the best time every day. 

Here’s how you find out when your readers are using Facebook from your Page:

Facebook Insights are available for your Page (not your personal Profile) under the Insights tab at the top. The time of day data is available under “Posts” in the options on the left.

This will bring up a graph where you can see the average time your audience is on Facebook.

If you hover over a specific day, you’ll see an overlay that shows your readers’ activity for each day.

Make sure you check your insights for each platform at least once a quarter, since user trends tend to change. Then you can adjust your scheduling tool accordingly to make sure your posts are engaging with the most people possible.