When the Moon is in the 7th House and Other Best Times To Post on Social Media

I will dispense with my normal cheesy opening and get right to the point.

Research conducted the *Brotherhood of Universal Leaders and Laggards Sworn to Hinder Independent Thinking — or B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T. for short — has shown conclusively that the best time to post on social media to achieve maximum return is as follows:

• If the owner of your company’s last name has more than 3 vowels in it — but not in a row — the best time to post to Facebook is between 2:02PM and 2:24PM Eastern Standard Time.
• If the break room in your office has less than 10 tables in it AND has at least TWO vending machines in it —  with at least ONE machine offering at least ONE healthy option based on FDA guidelines, the optimal time to post to Instagram is between 6:18 and 7:47, Greenwich Mean Time.
• If your average customer weighs between 150 and 274 pounds, is a former Green Beret, Green Bay Packer and loves the color green, without question you want to be posting to LinkedIn from the hours of 11:36AM and 3:56PM BUT only — and this is vitally important — only if your company operates under the Julian calendar.

Sprouting Up

In case you couldn’t tell, the above was completely fabricated. I know, I know you were already halfway through your new strategy and polling your database to find those ex Green Berets but… I was obviously having some and trying to make a point.

And the point I am trying to make is THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE SIZE FITS ALL when it comes to social media or pretty much anything else in this world, especially when it comes to marketing.

I was inspired to scribe my well-intentioned fabrication after reading results of actual research conduced by SproutSocial. Their blog post announcing the findings was aptly-titled Best times to post on social media for 2019.

Now for the record, let me state unequivocally I have nothing against Sprout Social. I do not know anyone at the company — at least I don’t think I do and that includes the author of the blog post, who I’m sure is a wonderful person as is everyone at the company.

BUT… A HUGE BUT IS COMING

The but is whenever I see research like this — and rest assured this is not the first of its kind nor will it be the last — it bothers me. Oh who am I kidding? It infuriates me!

Why?

As I previously said: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE SIZE FITS ALL when it comes to social media or pretty much anything else in this world, especially when it comes to marketing.

Let me go back to the Sprout research for a second — sorry guys, don’t mean to pile on. This is an excerpt from the blog post announcing the findings:

“In order to get granular and find out the best times to publish on social media for four social media networks, we worked closely with Sprout’s data science team to pull this information based on our customers.”

Did you catch the unmistakable obvious operative words?

“Based on OUR customers.”

NOTE: Before I go on, let me point out that the SproutSocial post contains the following language/disclaimer: “Looking for a customized schedule of the best times to post on social media? You’ve come to the right place. Sprout’s patented ViralPost technology analyzes your data to find optimal send times for your content.”

So now you may be thinking: ‘But Steve if they have this language doesn’t mean they too are acknowledging one size does not fit all? Why are you blasting them?’

Well first off, I am not blasting anyone, at least I don’t mean to. Well then again, maybe I do. The title of the post, as mentioned, is Best times to post on social media for 2019. If it were 100% transparent, the title would have been: Best times to post on social media for 2019 for SproutSocial customers. 

But that would probably not get as many clicks or get picked up by other pubs i.e. Econsultancy which included the research in a recent “best digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week” piece. Not saying this was click bait or anything like that. I’m merely saying the title surely did not hurt the Views KPI.

And my fear and realization is many brands will read research like this — or the hundreds and hundreds just like it and think they’ve reached nirvana. They’ll not read the ‘fine print’ and begin to post to their own social media accounts based on research that has nothing to do with their brand or their customers.

Put the Personal in Personalization

The bottom line in ALL of this the onus is on brands to know the What, Why, When, Where and How customers interact with your brand on social platforms… and then respond and engage accordingly.

Yes, it really is that simple.

*This is a fictitious name. It is either a product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual companies is purely coincidental. And an incredible one at that.