You  might be missing the best times to publish content online. TrackMaven suggests a publishing schedule for better engagement:

If you’re like most marketers, you publish your brand’s blog content during the workweek. It’s business, after all, so you set it live during business hours on a workday. The problem is, that’s what most marketers do, and a recent TrackMaven study suggests engagement for content published during nights and weekends.

Exhibit A: Publishers set the majority of blog posts live between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Exhibit B: Most social shares happen between 7 and 11 p.m. and 4 to 6 a.m.

Exhibit C: Content is published most frequently during weekdays, but social shares happen most frequently on the weekends.

It looks like most shares happen at night when readers are browsing the web and discovering content. Meanwhile, marketing teams and writers are flooding the web with content during regular business hours.

What’s the solution? It depends. A blanket solution is to publish content during nights and weekends, when people are actively engaging with content and distributing articles.

A more targeted approach is to deep dive into your own content and social media analytics.

Get to know your audience’s content reading habits

Look at your Google Analytics reports and social media engagement reports to find out:

  • What days of the week do you get the most organic search traffic?

  • What time of the day do you get the most organic search traffic?

  • What days of the time week do you get the most social referral traffic?

  • What times of the day do you get the most social referral traffic?

  • When do you get the most social media engagement?

Identify trends in the results to get a better sense of when people are engaged in your content. If you are getting more traffic on Tuesdays at 6 p.m., test out publishing and promoting your content around that time and see how it influences your visits.

Most content management systems let you schedule posts to go live at desired times, so you don’t need someone at the helm publishing during off hours. Similarly, social media platforms like Sprout Social, Tweet Deck and HootSuite allow you to schedule social posts in advance to promote the content when you know your audience is highly active.

We’re all looking for a silver bullet for content marketing results. Unfortunately, there isn’t one. There are some approaches that seem to work better than others. Publishing frequently invites stronger readership. Promoting resources encourages lead gen. However, the rate at which you publish and the networks on which your post your content will depend on your audience’s preferences.

The key to success is agility toward what moves the needle for your marketing results.

Want to learn more about the ideal time to post content on your website and social media? Check out these related resources:

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.