As an analyst, the number one question I get about a brand’s page is timing; “When is the best time to post?” “What day of the week is the best?”. Those are the requests that litter my inbox, and they are reasonable requests. Why wouldn’t you want to know the best time to reach your fans? But as we get smarter about social, it becomes more and more clear that what you post matters so much more than when you post it.

That’s the crux of the problem with the Day of Week/Time of Day request. If I post my best content on Wednesday and get a ton of engagement, that does not mean my fans are most available on Wednesday. At Socialtyze we run regression after regression to see what variables are significant predictors of success. The most common results are:

1. The Media attached to the post (Photos Vs. Text Vs. Video Etc)

2. Post Type (Questions Vs. Products Vs. Fill in the Blank)

3. Whether or not there is a CTA to click

4. Time in Between Post

5. Photo Type (Young Women Vs. Family Vs. Product Photo)

6. Character Count

The order varies by brand, but Time of Day never makes that list. Neither does Day of Week. It goes back the great Guy Kawasaki quote about SEO “The best SEO tip is to write something good,”. Because of its algorithm, Facebook is a meritocracy. Create a something that people love and it will find a way to your fan’s news feed.

Facebook’s recent addition of the story bump - where old stories that match particularly well with the user are brought back into the Newsfeed - further nullifies the timing analysis. It just does not make sense to labor about posting at 10AM vs. 11AM when Facebook’s own algorithm doesn't particularly care.

I’m not suggesting to post at 1AM, every recommendation is within reason. But if you have the luxury of working with an analyst, redirect his or her attention to content based analysis. The results will be more actionable for your community managers, and more fun for your data team.