The best time to post on LinkedIn

Do you know exactly the time to post on LinkedIn that will have the most impact?

Whether you're using LinkedIn to promote your services, expand your network or search for "that rare pearl" to join your company, it's essential to establish a well-thought-out, coherent strategy to achieve your objectives.

And when it comes to strategy on LinkedIn, there are a number of concepts to master. You need to know what's trending, what generates engagement and what pitfalls to avoid.

In this article, we'll take a look at an important aspect of this strategy: choosing the right time to post on LinkedIn.

I'll give you the keys to choosing the right timing that will increase the visibility of your LinkedIn publications.

Ready to achieve your goals? Let's discover together the best time to post on LinkedIn.

Why is the time of day you post on LinkedIn important?

Before starting to define the best time to post on LinkedIn, it's important to understand the importance of this choice.

LinkedIn is used every day by 3.5 million professionals, that's as many people who can interact with your post. But you still need to reach the right people. We'll look at this in a moment.

On LinkedIn, as on most social networks, the first few hours are crucial to the success of your post.
The more your audience interacts with your post early on, the more LinkedIn will showcase it.
The power of your post won't be the same depending on the time it was published.

So it's vital to find the best time to post on LinkedIn.

When is the best time to post on LinkedIn?

Now that we've seen the importance of choosing the right time to post on LinkedIn, let's get to the heart of the matter.

We're now going to look at privileged times and those to be avoided absolutely.
This will give you an initial idea of the best time to post on LinkedIn.

What are the best days to post on LinkedIn?

In general, we recommend posting on LinkedIn on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

But why these days?

First of all, Tuesdays and Thursdays are ideal for professionals who want to post twice a week, because the posts will be spaced judiciously throughout the working week.

These are also the days when there are the most people on LinkedIn, so the publication will tend to reach more people.

What are the worst days to post on LinkedIn?

On the contrary, the days when it's strongly inadvisable to post on LinkedIn are Saturday and Sunday.

These days are "off days" for most professionals, who are therefore not present on LinkedIn. As a general rule, it's not a good idea to post on weekends.

Monday and Friday are also low engagement days.
Monday is the day on which the week resumes, with its share of meetings, email openings and the like.
Fridays, on the other hand, are more a day for completing the week's objectives.

Professionals are therefore less present on LinkedIn on these days.

Studies on the best time to post on LinkedIn

To get a better idea of the ideal time to post on LinkedIn, a number of studies have been carried out.

This gives us an initial assessment of the best time to post on LinkedIn.

Most of them have been carried out by social network planning and management tools.

Here are some of them:

• HubSpot: 8am to 12pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thursdays at 9am.
• Oberlo: 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
• Quintly: from 7am to 8am, to 12pm and from 5pm to 6pm, any day.
• Sprout Social: from 8am to 10am and 00am (midnight), Thursdays at 9am and from 1pm to 2pm on Wednesdays and at 9am on Fridays.
• Buffer: 7am to 8:30am and 5pm to 6pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
• The Balance SMB: 7am to 8am and 5pm to 6pm.

We can see that a general trend is emerging between these different studies and that certain time slots are recurring.

In general, what's the best time to post on LinkedIn?

It's often best to post on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Times that fall between working hours are preferable.

This is when LinkedIn users are most present on the social network and most willing to interact with your post.

We can therefore say that the best times to post on LinkedIn are :

• between 7am and 8am,
• on the lunch break,
• and between 5pm and 6pm.

These times already give you a good idea of when you can publish posts to make them perform.

However, you shouldn't rely on these estimates alone. A more in-depth study of your strategy will surely enable you to stick even more closely to your audience and your needs.

That's what we're going to look at now.

Find the best time to post on LinkedIn

As we've just seen, numerous studies have been carried out that give us an idea of the best times to post on LinkedIn.

This data is therefore a good basis for determining the best time to post on LinkedIn and get engagement.

However, you shouldn't rely solely on these figures, which give an interesting idea, but only a global one.

It's important to find the best time to post on LinkedIn according to criteria that are specific to your content strategy.

That's why we're going to review the parameters you need to take into account to help you refine your choice and get the most engagement from your LinkedIn publications.

The best time to post on LinkedIn depends on your business.

First of all, the best time to post on LinkedIn will depend on your business.

If you focus on B2B, you won't post at the same time as a company focused on B2C.

This is because the audience you're trying to reach is different, and therefore uses LinkedIn at different times.

For B2B companies, we observe a higher rate of engagement during the week, mainly during lunch and on the way to work.

For B2C companies, lunchtime is also a time of high engagement. Then there are the hours outside work.

It's a good idea to adapt to these criteria when posting on LinkedIn.

For example, here are some interesting times to post:

• B2B: post in the morning between 8 and 9:30 a.m., between 12 and 2 p.m. or between 5:30 and 7 p.m. on weekdays (Monday to Friday),
• B2C: post between 12 and 2 p.m. or in the evening

Your industry also defines when you should post on LinkedIn.

To be even more precise in your choice of posting time, you can take your sector of activity into account even more precisely.

Your audience may be connected at other times, and it would be a shame to miss out on these time slots.

Here's some information you may find useful:

• Software and media companies work best on weekday mornings or after office hours.
• Higher education and healthcare companies, on the other hand, work best on weekdays, in mid-morning or early afternoon (10:00-14:00).
• Communication and marketing agencies start earlier and finish later than most professionals.

The best time to post on LinkedIn depends on your objectives

Depending on your objectives, you can define different times to post on LinkedIn.

So you need to ask yourself what you want to achieve with your posts.

Here's some information you may find useful, depending on your objectives:

• Most clicks and shares occur on Tuesdays from 11am to midnight.
• For optimal engagement, choose Tuesday from 10am to 11am.

Once again, this information should be taken into account along with the rest of the parameters of your content strategy on LinkedIn.

Post on LinkedIn at a time when your audience is present on the social network

Knowing your audience is the key to your content strategy.

It's for your users that you publish.

So choose the time when your audience is most likely to interact with your LinkedIn post.

Your audience depends on a number of criteria, including your industry, the service you offer and the goals you want to achieve.

Finally, having a clear, precise and coherent content strategy is essential to achieving the results you want.

Need help defining your LinkedIn content strategy?

Don't hesitate to use Alara to help you in this step and accompany you in achieving your goals on LinkedIn.

How to calculate the best time to post on LinkedIn

While there's no magic formula for finding the best time to post on LinkedIn, following these steps will help you fine-tune the optimal time to post on LinkedIn.

Find the publications that have worked best

What could be better than reproducing recipes that work?

If you've already published on LinkedIn, analyze the posts that worked best.

First of all, choose data that interests you.

For example, you can take into account the number of impressions of your publication. You can also choose the posts that generated the most comments or connections to your profile.

Once you've chosen the data to analyze, find the posts with the best results.

Do they have anything in common?

Were the best-performing posts published at a specific time?

Ask yourself these questions to get an idea of the best times to publish on LinkedIn.

Thanks to this technique, you'll surely have the best time to post on LinkedIn for your audience.

Analyze the competition

If you haven't yet published on LinkedIn, or if you'd like to increase the impact of your LinkedIn publications, it may be a good idea to look at the competition.

Observe and analyze the posts that work best, and again ask yourself what the commonalities between these different posts are that you can reuse in your strategy.

You'll then see when your competitors are posting on LinkedIn, which will give you an idea of the best time to post.

Track your results

The optimal time to post on LinkedIn today may not be the same tomorrow.

Analyze your results over time to stay on track and keep refining your publications.

Test, analyze the results, draw conclusions and reproduce the process.

You'll see that your results will follow.

Always be consistent

Above all, keep consistency throughout your content strategy on LinkedIn and in each of your publications.

It's the content of your publication that will keep your audience connected with your company.

Always be authentic. This will help you achieve your goals on LinkedIn.

What to remember about the best time to post on LinkedIn

Choosing the right time to post on LinkedIn is crucial to your content strategy.

Numerous studies give us clues as to the best time to post on LinkedIn, but it is necessary to adapt it to the needs of your company and the results you wish to achieve.

Defining your business, your audience and your objectives is a crucial first step in choosing the ideal time to post on LinkedIn.

Finally, analyze and test your publications and those of your competitors over time to refine your strategy and find the best time to post on LinkedIn.

If you want to achieve your goals on LinkedIn right now, discover Alara.