B2B social media: what is the best time to post?
First of all, it’s important to distinguish between B2B and B2C companies. The target audience of B2C companies often makes faster decisions and is less loyal. Therefore, it’s important to continuously bring content to their attention and stimulate impulse purchases.
B2B companies, on the other hand, have a more complex buying process, known as the buyer’s journey. A potential customer first educates themselves about a specific topic or service. As a B2B entrepreneur, this is an opportunity to become and remain visible. Because if your potential customer has a problem, and your service provides the solution, you want your brand to stand out above your competitors. To stay top-of-mind with potential customers, we advise our B2B clients to maintain a bi-weekly content distribution.
So, is it only about the frequency of content distribution? The answer is no. Recent research shows that the timing of distribution has an impact on the level of interaction on social media. More interaction means more reach. This means that your content’s reach will be smaller if you distribute it at times when there is little interaction. Therefore, there are valid reasons to stick to successful days and times.
LinkedIn: Best Time for Your Post
Among all social media platforms, LinkedIn is considered the most professionally oriented one. Consequently, you’ll see the least activity on this platform during weekends. LinkedIn primarily focuses on expanding the network of professionals and increasing business visibility. In the Netherlands, 47% of users are between 20 and 39 years old, and 37% are between 40 and 64 years old.
On LinkedIn, in principle, you can share anything, from articles to video content. However, content that is clearly non-business-related is not appreciated by many users. But when should you share your business content in terms of time and day?
Since LinkedIn is mostly used during office hours, you would expect a post shared during office hours to have the widest reach. However, research shows an interesting pattern, with the most interaction occurring at 7:00 PM. Consider this as an opportunity and experiment with late LinkedIn posts.
LinkedIn Best Practice: Link to Your Own Website
Make sure that in your post, you always link to your own page and make your target audience curious enough so that readers want to read or view the content on your website.
Many articles suggest that posts with a link perform worse on LinkedIn than posts without a link, meaning that the reach of your post is lower. They advise you to share the link in the comments instead. We disagree with this approach. Marketing on an external channel like LinkedIn aims to reach many people and have a significant impact. However, by directing people to your own website, you have much more control and insight. You can encourage people to subscribe to a newsletter, offer a special call to action, or point out other interesting articles or content. You can see what works and what doesn’t. On LinkedIn, you are subject to the algorithm, and, just like Facebook, LinkedIn can suddenly decide that you need to pay to reach your target audience. That’s when you’ll be glad you’ve built your own channel.
Using Instagram in B2B
Instagram is primarily popular for sharing photo and video content. We previously wrote an article about the power of video marketing. This makes the platform more limited for you as a business owner, as potential customers cannot be directly redirected to your desired website page. Additionally, your target audience may not even use Instagram, as the largest percentage of users is aged 15-25. If you still want to use this platform, we advise you to carefully consider the message you want to convey with video marketing.
Over the past period, the best time to post on Instagram has shifted. While most interaction was previously in the early evening, the time has now shifted to the afternoon. The peak is observed around 5:00 PM.
Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the Netherlands. While the platform is used by almost all age groups, with the largest group of users being the older half of the Netherlands, there is another notable fact about the users. The lower the level of education, the more time is spent on Facebook.
For example, statistics show that 52% of American users get daily news updates from Facebook. If, for example, you are a recruiter looking for new employees for logistics roles, Facebook is a suitable platform. However, if you are looking for highly educated professionals, the chances are that you won’t reach your target audience through Facebook.
The best time to post on Facebook is similar to Instagram and has remained fairly stable in recent years. There are two daily peaks, around noon and at 7:00 PM. It seems that interaction mainly takes place outside of office hours.
The Importance of Content
All in all, we can conclude that each platform targets a more or less specific audience, and different types of content are distributed on different platforms. Think of LinkedIn as a platform for publishing whitepapers, articles, or blogs. Facebook is a suitable platform for running campaigns, and Instagram is excellent for sharing photo and video content.
The fact remains that the quality of your content is the most important factor. Yes, it helps to post on the days and times when the most interaction is observed. However, what matters most is how well your message resonates with your target audience. The better your content, the more likes, comments, and shares your posts will receive. So, think carefully about how to make your readers curious with your content and critically review it yourself. Less is more, as long as it is of high quality.
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