As I delve deeper and deeper into the world of social media marketing, I have come to appreciate the importance of testing - testing content, testing the various times you post that content and which audience responds to what content.
I think testing is a common practice among companies with large social media teams and big budgets but is often overlooked by small businesses and freelancers. After really diving deep into my analytics I found some very insightful nuggets and you might be enlightened as well if you take the time to look.
For starters, I found that when I post my content early in the morning, on every single channel (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter), it is not getting the same engagement as when I post a few hours later. Industry-wide data has shown the best times to post are typically in the late afternoon - 3 or 4 p.m. - however, this varies for everyone's audience. I see the most engagement when I post anywhere from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., which could possibly mean my target audience is skimming its social channels during lunch breaks.
I have also found that my audience responds extremely well to video content. Which, to be honest, kind of surprised me. It didn't occur to me that my target audience - investors and entrepreneurs - would have the time to stop and watch a video, which could point to the importance of posting the best content for your target audience. Your content has to be worth their time, period. You have to bring valuable information to the community you are trying to reach, otherwise, you become noise in an overcrowded space.
Moral of the story is, take a look at your analytics and test your timing and your content to see if your audience responds better to videos, questions, how-to's etc. You might be surprised by what you find.