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Creating SMART SEO Goals For Your Enterprise Business

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A goal is only as useful as the thoughtfulness of creating it.

Like many overused marketing terms and cliches, a “goal” can become an overbearing or meaningless word or purposeless objective.

Employers may hand them down without fully understanding the feasibility of accomplishment. Employees may feel pressured to meet assigned goals, realistic or unrealistic, without a plan for how to reach them.

In particular, marketing leadership often overlook SEO goals if they assume organic is a cost-free acquisition channel that will automatically work for them behind the scenes.

Those who’ve worked in SEO for even a short time know that’s not how it works.

Especially in enterprise organizations.

While it can be challenging to determine the full impact of one’s SEO efforts, there are multiple KPIs and productive methods of tracking the effect of optimizations.

The most useful method of creating meaningful goals is applying the SMART framework to your KPIs.

You can apply the SMART framework to any goal, company, or business. But for SEO, there are particular considerations to include in your goal-building process.

And by layering SEO throughout this process, you’ll find goals that accurately reflect the impact of your SEO efforts and demonstrate you can deliver what you promised.

What Is A SMART Goal?

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic (or Relevant), and Timely (or Time-bound).

When creating any goal, ensure that those five dimensions apply to your goal.

As part of the goal-setting process, ask yourself each of these questions:

  • What specifically is it that you plan to measure?
  • Do you have a way to measure the KPI?
  • Can you make an actionable impact on this KPI?
  • Is the specific item you’re aiming to improve realistically changing based on your actions? Is it relevant to your company objectives?
  • In what timeframe do you estimate showing your efforts’ impact on the KPI?

Go through these and only proceed to the next question if you can determine a reasonable answer to each.

Once you’ve answered each question, transform your findings into a definitive statement. And there you have it.

Applying The SMART Goals Process To SEO

The five principles of SMART can be applied to any business, company, or client.

But when creating SMART goals specifically for SEO, here’s how you should think about applying each to your goal-building process.

Specific

The purpose of SMART goals is to demonstrate the impact of specific marketing efforts, or in this case, your search and site optimizations.

Ultimately, you want to prove that your optimizations increased your business’ or client’s objectives and goals

Therefore, start the set-up of each SMART goal by choosing one particular KPI.

Limiting each goal to one KPI helps ensure the accuracy of the remaining four qualifications of SMART.

When picking a KPI for SEO, start by checking if you can tie your SEO KPIs into broader business goals and objectives.

That way, you can demonstrate how your search optimizations support your company or client’s marketing conversion funnel.

Within the funnel, these KPIs often start with total impressions on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)and end with sales, purchases, or other financial transactions.

SEO KPIs Across The Marketing Funnel

Top Of Marketing Funnel (Awareness)

  • Total impressions.
  • Page 1 search volume.
  • Clicks from search engines.
  • CTR from search engines.
  • Users from search.
  • Pageviews from search.
  • On-page conversions from search traffic.
  • Earnings from search traffic.

Bottom Of Marketing Funnel (Conversion)

You may be inclined to rely on other SEO metrics such as specific results types, including Answer Boxes (also known as Featured Snippets), or People Also Ask placements.

However, there are two reasons to avoid those types of metrics.

They can drastically fluctuate in unrelated ways to your efforts, and more importantly, they don’t directly tie to the bigger picture business goals of traffic and conversions.

In contrast, Page 1 placements represent the number of times your content shows up on Page 1 of the SERP. There’s less than a 2.5% chance of a click if your content is not on Page 1.

So your presence on Page 1 is a huge indicator of the organic traffic you may be able to drive.

Similarly, conversions and earnings from search are particularly powerful KPIs to include in your goals as they help prove SEO and Content Marketing ROI, both critical determinants of marketing success.

Overall, it’s essential to ensure that our goals are crystal-clear and connected to our business objectives so everyone from the boardroom to the marketing department understands what success looks like.

Measurable

Fortunately, most SEO metrics are easy enough to track, as long as you have the right platforms, tools, and/or software set up to ingest your data:

  • Website analytics, traffic, and acquisition sources can be tracked through tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, or other tracking software.
  • Search engines let you track your visibility, rank, and clicks of keywords that show your website through tools such as Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
  • Platforms such as  BridgeEdge, Conductor, and Semrush capture your keyword rankings, rank changes, keyword MSV, result types, and so on for keywords you’ve tracked and those you research. Some have integrations that allow you to ingest your website’s data and crawl it.
  • Site crawling can also happen with separate tools like ContentKing and DeepCrawl that track technical SEO components, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags, flag site errors, monitor Core Web Vitals like site speed, and more.

Before adding any of the metrics from these sources, you’ll need to establish a benchmark for it.

Timing and reporting will be discussed in greater detail when we get to the T in SMART, but essentially, your goal needs a comparison between two different points in time.

To compare data effectively, you’ll have to establish the baseline for the previous month, if not the year.

Unfortunately, it can be especially difficult to prove certain changes resulted in specific measurable metrics for SEO. And that needs to be expressed clearly when constructing and explaining your goals.

However, using segments to track specific pages you’ve updated and keywords for which you’re trying to optimize will help demonstrate whether results improved after your optimizations.

And by trying to ensure that you (or your content or web team) make your optimizations as close together as possible, you’ll have an easier time tracking changes over time.

Attainable And Achievable

There are many achievable and actionable ways to impact organic search performance.

SEO initiatives include keyword research, competitive analysis, site auditing, data analysis, resulting in optimization recommendations for new content, existing content, and technical fixes that improve the conversion funnel.

And hopefully, helps you beat out your competitors.

But not all SEO efforts can be tracked or clearly measured. Some challenges include not knowing the following:

  • When Google crawls a new web page or recrawls an optimized one.
  • When the SERP is updated to show optimized content.
  • If the content is still relevant to consumers at that time to encourage clicks.
  • If anything breaks on your site that causes errors or hurts rank or Core Web Vitals.

That last one represents why site health, internal/external linking, or other technical SEO metrics aren’t recommended for SMART Goals. There are just too many variables that you can’t control.

But by constructing your SMART Goals in a way that follows the conversion funnel, you can see the full picture that should more clearly highlight trends in organic success.

If any part of the funnel fluctuates unexpectedly, that may help flag external issues negatively impacting your success.

Plus, as long as you plan out your optimizations in advance, you can align your monthly goals to the level of impact you plan to have.

As long as you make those updates, you can get a sense of what you can achieve a month after each round of updates goes live.

Even if you don’t have SMART Goals for all parts of the funnel, tracking them will still help you better understand the role of organic at each stage and help you evolve your goals.

Realistic

Achievable also means realistic. Regardless of leadership expectations or the desire to set aggressive goals, you need to set reasonable expectations.

An up-and-coming company or one with very low SEO maturity may be able to set steep goals, at least initially, if they plan to implement improvements to the basic tenets and foundations of SEO.

A company already has a fairly high level of SEO maturity if they’ve optimized technical components, they are monitored frequently, and content is optimized regularly. It may only grow 7%–12% in metrics like organic traffic year over year.

So company context is key.

Before choosing specific metrics and estimating the improvement you’ll make, ask yourself:

  • Can you realistically make headway on the keywords that you’re going after?
  • Is there actual interest in the pages you’re trying to optimize?
  • Will your optimizations actually go live?
  • Do you have the resources to do the necessary SEO research and publish changes?
  • Do you have the reporting set up to measure your KPI?
  • Does the expected impact you intend to have on SEO match the SEO maturity level of the company or client you’re optimizing for?

Any one of these should be considered blockers when creating a SMART Goal.

Some versions of SMART use Relevant as the R.

But incorporating specific KPIs from within the conversion funnel that aligns with broader business objectives and goals – all of which are already built into this process – will ensure relevancy.

Time-bound And Timelined

Results should be demonstrable within an allotted time frame.

Establish a timeline with start and end dates to track when you expect to see your desired results based on when you begin your work.

This drives you to accomplish your goals in a set period and proactively manages leader and colleague expectations if someone asks you to speed up your efforts or asks why you haven’t achieved any of your goals sooner.

The actual optimizations you’ll want to measure, whether they are content or technical, can often be counted as soon as they go live, especially when SEO experts have direct access to edit their website.

But to adequately measure the impact of SEO efforts and prove effectiveness, either content or technical, you generally have to wait at least a month to begin measuring meaningful results.

Their impact could be visible as soon as the search engine crawls the page where the change happened.

But their impact needs at least a month to account for delays in crawling, for the change to reflect in the SERP, and for users to start engaging with content.

Especially if you have a site that is crawled less often, it may take Google an extended amount of time before it recrawls your site, allowing it to recognize the change.

Considerations Of SEO SMART Goals

Once you have considered all five of these components, carefully consider how they apply to the work you do regularly.

If you don’t find that your projects allow you to establish such goals, then perhaps it’s time to rethink your efforts or connect with your manager on expectations, available resources, and tracking options.

Framework For Creating SMART SEO Goals

To start building your own SMART goals for SEO, apply this process to each:

  • Pick any of the KPIs. One at a time.
  • Ensure that it aligns with broader business goals.
  • Review all SMART concepts and confirm you can apply the principle to your work using the following matrix.

SEO SMART Goals Matrix

Examples Of SEO SMART Goals

Based on this framework, you might create SEO SMART goals such as:

  • Move 20 optimized pages currently on Page 2 to Page 1 between 2022 Q2 and 2022 Q3.
  • Increase clicks from Google by 6% MoM (May to June 2022).
  • Increase organic traffic to your website by +10% by August 2022.
  • Maintain a base of 20,000 organic visitors per week.
  • Increase organic traffic to optimized pages by +16% within two months of the optimizations (July 2022).
  • Increase organic downloads by 7% per page between new content published in ‘22 1H and new content published in 2022 2H.
  • Increase revenue by 5% from organic sources for the next three months (June–Aug 2022).

Customizing Your SMART Goals For SEO

While you could adapt any of these goals to suit your SEO objectives and for any business, you’ll still have to consider the customizations needed.

When working on the R part of your SMART Goals, make sure you align the percentage increase with the extent of the effort you’ll be able to actualize.

Base the increases on original levels of impressions, organic users, and conversions per optimized page and total MSV and original placement of keywords.

If you have time, test out the impact of your optimizations for one or two months to determine the type of lift you see and aim to replicate that moving forward.

Regardless of customizations, ensure that your process follows the central tenants of SMART, as summarized in this infographic:

Image created by author, May 2022Infographic for How to Set SEO SMART Goals

Challenges When Creating SEO SMART Goals

In some cases, you may need to broaden your goal to get it approved.

While you may not have a choice in the matter, inform leadership that the numbers you estimate are based on the impact you believe you will have on the pages and keywords you are optimizing for.

Certain technical improvements, structural and speed enhancements, and optimizations on components that impact more of the site (headers, footers, pages with multiple incoming and outgoing links, etc.) may help overall findability.

But they are fairly difficult to attribute to specific actions and are especially challenging to report on.

Stick to reporting on your more trackable efforts.

Conclusion

Building goals is a challenging process.

It’s a serious task that takes careful consideration, team collaboration, and, most notably, the ability to deliver what you proposed is necessary to reach the goals.

And just because you create a goal using the SMART process doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to meet it, let alone surpass it.

But the SMART framework – when applied conscientiously, accurately, and honestly – will ultimately help you help yourself.

It will support your ability to prove your value when implementing SEO and demonstrate how both you and your endeavors benefit your company and its goals.

Featured Image: Natee K Jindakum/Shutterstock

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OpenAI Investigates ‘Lazy’ GPT-4 Complaints On Google Reviews, X

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OpenAI Investigates 'Lazy' GPT-4 Complaints On Google Reviews, X

OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT a little over a year ago, has recently taken to social media to address concerns regarding the “lazy” performance of GPT-4 on social media and Google Reviews.

Screenshot from X, December 2023OpenAI Investigates ‘Lazy’ GPT-4 Complaints On Google Reviews, X

This move comes after growing user feedback online, which even includes a one-star review on the company’s Google Reviews.

OpenAI Gives Insight Into Training Chat Models, Performance Evaluations, And A/B Testing

OpenAI, through its @ChatGPTapp Twitter account, detailed the complexities involved in training chat models.

chatgpt openai a/b testingScreenshot from X, December 2023chatgpt openai a/b testing

The organization highlighted that the process is not a “clean industrial process” and that variations in training runs can lead to noticeable differences in the AI’s personality, creative style, and political bias.

Thorough AI model testing includes offline evaluation metrics and online A/B tests. The final decision to release a new model is based on a data-driven approach to improve the “real” user experience.

OpenAI’s Google Review Score Affected By GPT-4 Performance, Billing Issues

This explanation comes after weeks of user feedback about GPT-4 becoming worse on social media networks like X.

Complaints also appeared in OpenAI’s community forums.

openai community forums gpt-4 user feedbackScreenshot from OpenAI, December 2023openai community forums gpt-4 user feedback

The experience led one user to leave a one-star rating for OpenAI via Google Reviews. Other complaints regarded accounts, billing, and the artificial nature of AI.

openai google reviews star rating Screenshot from Google Reviews, December 2023openai google reviews star rating

A recent user on Product Hunt gave OpenAI a rating that also appears to be related to GPT-4 worsening.

openai reviewsScreenshot from Product Hunt, December 2023openai reviews

GPT-4 isn’t the only issue that local reviewers complain about. On Yelp, OpenAI has a one-star rating for ChatGPT 3.5 performance.

The complaint:

yelp openai chatgpt reviewScreenshot from Yelp, December 2023yelp openai chatgpt review

In related OpenAI news, the review with the most likes aligns with recent rumors about a volatile workplace, alleging that OpenAI is a “Cutthroat environment. Not friendly. Toxic workers.”

google review for openai toxic workersScreenshot from Google Reviews, December 2023google review for openai toxic workers

The reviews voted the most helpful on Glassdoor about OpenAI suggested that employee frustration and product development issues stem from the company’s shift in focus on profits.

openai employee review on glassdooropenai employee review on glassdoor

openai employee reviewsScreenshots from Glassdoor, December 2023openai employee reviews

This incident provides a unique outlook on how customer and employee experiences can impact any business through local reviews and business ratings platforms.

openai inc google business profile local serps google reviewsScreenshot from Google, December 2023openai inc google business profile local serps google reviews

Google SGE Highlights Positive Google Reviews

In addition to occasional complaints, Google reviewers acknowledged the revolutionary impact of OpenAI’s technology on various fields.

The most positive review mentions about the company appear in Google SGE (Search Generative Experience).

Google SGE response on OpenAIScreenshot from Google SGE, December 2023Google SGE response on OpenAI

Conclusion

OpenAI’s recent insights into training chat models and response to public feedback about GPT-4 performance illustrate AI technology’s dynamic and evolving nature and its impact on those who depend on the AI platform.

Especially the people who just received an invitation to join ChatGPT Plus after being waitlisted while OpenAI paused new subscriptions and upgrades. Or those developing GPTs for the upcoming GPT Store launch.

As AI advances, professionals in these fields must remain agile, informed, and responsive to technological developments and the public’s reception of these advancements.


Featured image: Tada Images/Shutterstock



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ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

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ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

ChatGPT Plus subscriptions and upgrades remain paused after a surge in demand for new features created outages.

Some users who signed up for the waitlist have received invites to join ChatGPT Plus.

Screenshot from Gmail, December 2023ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

This has resulted in a few shares of the link that is accessible for everyone. For now.

RELATED: GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays

In addition to the invites, signs that more people are getting access to GPTs include an introductory screen popping up on free ChatGPT accounts.

ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive InvitesScreenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

Unfortunately, they still aren’t accessible without a Plus subscription.

chatgpt plus subscriptions upgrades paused waitlistScreenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023chatgpt plus subscriptions upgrades paused waitlist

You can sign up for the waitlist by clicking on the option to upgrade in the left sidebar of ChatGPT on a desktop browser.

ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive InvitesScreenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

OpenAI also suggests ChatGPT Enterprise for those who need more capabilities, as outlined in the pricing plans below.

ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive InvitesScreenshot from OpenAI, December 2023ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites

Why Are ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions Paused?

According to a post on X by OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, the recent surge in usage following the DevDay developers conference has led to capacity challenges, resulting in the decision to pause ChatGPT Plus signups.

The decision to pause new ChatGPT signups follows a week where OpenAI services – including ChatGPT and the API – experienced a series of outages related to high-demand and DDoS attacks.

Demand for ChatGPT Plus resulted in eBay listings supposedly offering one or more months of the premium subscription.

When Will ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions Resume?

So far, we don’t have any official word on when ChatGPT Plus subscriptions will resume. We know the GPT Store is set to open early next year after recent boardroom drama led to “unexpected delays.”

Therefore, we hope that OpenAI will onboard waitlisted users in time to try out all of the GPTs created by OpenAI and community builders.

What Are GPTs?

GPTs allow users to create one or more personalized ChatGPT experiences based on a specific set of instructions, knowledge files, and actions.

Search marketers with ChatGPT Plus can try GPTs for helpful content assessment and learning SEO.

There are also GPTs for analyzing Google Search Console data.

And GPTs that will let you chat with analytics data from 20 platforms, including Google Ads, GA4, and Facebook.

Google search has indexed hundreds of public GPTs. According to an alleged list of GPT statistics in a GitHub repository, DALL-E, the top GPT from OpenAI, has received 5,620,981 visits since its launch last month. Included in the top 20 GPTs is Canva, with 291,349 views.

 

Weighing The Benefits Of The Pause

Ideally, this means that developers working on building GPTs and using the API should encounter fewer issues (like being unable to save GPT drafts).

But it could also mean a temporary decrease in new users of GPTs since they are only available to Plus subscribers – including the ones I tested for learning about ranking factors and gaining insights on E-E-A-T from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

custom gpts for seoScreenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023custom gpts for seo

Featured image: Robert Way/Shutterstock



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The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2024

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The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2024

Marketers worldwide know the importance of having a solid social media marketing strategy – and a key part of this is finding the best times to post on social media.

The old adage ‘timing is everything’ holds especially true in the world of social media, where the difference between a post that fades into obscurity and one that goes viral can often be just a matter of when it was shared.

With an always-growing array of social platforms hosting billions of users worldwide, it has never been more challenging to stand above the noise and make your voice heard on social.

To determine the best times to post on social media in 2024, we reviewed original data from leading social media management tools.

It’s important to note that the data from these sources present a variety of findings and suggestions, which underscore the fact that social media is an ever-evolving landscape. The most crucial thing is understanding the behavior of your own target audience.

Let’s dive in.

The Best Times To Post On Social Media

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Tuesday and Wednesday 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Monday 12 p.m. EST
CoSchedule Friday, Wednesday, and Monday (in that order) 7 p.m. Local
  • Best times to post on social media: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
  • Best days to post on social media: Monday and Wednesday.
  • Worst days to post on social media: Saturday and Sunday.

Determining an ideal time for posting on social media in general is complicated, as each platform is different, with unique users, features, and communities.

When deciding which social media platforms to focus on, you should think carefully about your brand’s target audience and overarching goals.

If you’re looking to reach a network of professionals, LinkedIn might be a good fit; if your brand is hoping to speak to Gen Z consumers, you might consider TikTok or Snapchat.

This explains why – when analyzing data from Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and CoSchedule on the best overall times to post on social media – we can draw some similarities but also see a variety of recommendations.

Weekdays emerge as a clear winner. CoSchedule and Sprout Social both highlight Wednesday as a good day, with Hootsuite and CoSchedule also highlighting Mondays as a strong day for engagement.

The most common time range among the sources is in the morning to mid-afternoon, with CoSchedule providing some very specific suggestions for post-timing.

Both CoSchedule and Sprout Social agree on avoiding Saturdays and Sundays.

The Best Times To Post On Facebook

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Monday to Thursday 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Monday and Tuesday 1 p.m. EST
CoSchedule Friday, Wednesday, and Monday (in that order) 9 a.m. Local
  • Best times to post on Facebook: 8 a.m. – 1 p.m.
  • Best days to post on Facebook: Weekdays.
  • Worst day to post on Facebook: Sunday.

Facebook remains the most used social media platform in the world, with the largest advertising market share (16%).

While it’s experienced a shift in user demographics over recent years – now catering to older users – its popularity continues to climb, and its potential as a brand marketing tool cannot be disputed.

Regarding the best times to post on Facebook, all of our sources agree that weekdays are best. Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and CoSchdule all name Monday as a great day to engage on Facebook, along with calling out various other days of the week.

There is a general consensus that Sundays should be avoided.

The sources vary in their suggestions for optimal time slots, but generally speaking, early to mid-morning seems to be the most popular selection.

The Best Times To Post On YouTube

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
SocialPilot Sunday 2-4 p.m. EST
HubSpot Friday and Saturday 6-9 p.m. Local
  • Best times to post on YouTube: 2-4 p.m. on weekdays and 9-11 a.m. on weekends.
  • Best days to post on YouTube: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
  • Worst day to post on YouTube: Tuesday.

As the second most visited site in the world and the second most used social platform globally, YouTube offers an unparalleled opportunity for brands and individuals to connect with audiences through video.

And with its continued expansion – by introducing features like YouTube Shorts, initiatives like expanding the ways creators can get paid on the platform, and its increasing popularity as a search engine – the platform shows no signs of slowing.

YouTube is no longer just a video-sharing site; it’s a robust marketing tool that empowers businesses to raise brand awareness and drive meaningful engagement.

Finding recent data on the best times to post on YouTube proved harder than for some other channels, so these recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt.

While HubSpot suggests Friday and Saturday are the strongest days to publish on YouTube, SocialPilot specifically calls out Sunday as the most engaging day – so it’s worth experimenting with all three.

SocialPilot doesn’t specifically name the worst day, but according to HubSpot, you’d be wise to steer clear of Tuesday.

Both sources suggest the afternoon as an effective time for posting during the week. SocialPilot specifies that publishing in the mornings on weekends (9-11 a.m.) is effective, so this is important to bear in mind.

The Best Times To Post On Instagram

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Tuesday and Wednesday 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Wednesday 2 p.m. EST
HubSpot Saturday 6-9 p.m. Local
CoSchedule Wednesday, Friday, and Tuesday (in that order)

9 a.m. Local

Later Monday 4 a.m. Local
  • Best times to post on Instagram: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Best day to post on Instagram: Wednesday.
  • Worst day to post on Instagram: Sunday.

From its origins as a photo-sharing platform, Instagram has evolved into one of the most popular social media networks in the world – and an indispensable marketing tool.

With billions of users – 90% of whom are following at least one business – Instagram has become a powerful engine for ecommerce, brand awareness, and community-building.

As a leader in the social media space, Instagram constantly provides new formats and features for users to try out – from Reels to Stories, user quizzes and polls, and more.

We consulted a handful of sources to determine the top posting times for Instagram and came away with a mixed bag of answers.

Wednesday appears to take the cake as the most consistently recommended day, with CoSchedule, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite all suggesting it.

Generally, our sources seem to lean towards weekdays as being strongest for Instagram engagement – with the exception of HubSpot, which recommends Saturday.

In terms of timing, the morning to midday hours seem to be your best bet, especially around 8 a.m. through 1 p.m. HubSpot and Later provide times that significantly differ from other sources, which suggests that effectiveness can vary based on audience and content type.

The Best Times To Post On TikTok

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Tuesday and Wednesday 2-6 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Thursday 10 p.m. EST
SocialPilot Tuesday and Thursday 2 a.m. and 9 a.m. EST
HubSpot Friday 6-9 p.m. Local
  • Best time to post on TikTok: Inconclusive.
  • Best day to post on TikTok: Tuesday.
  • Worst day to post on TikTok: Inconclusive.

While it’s a relative newcomer to the fold, TikTok has quickly become one of the most beloved social platforms worldwide – and is drawing brands in increasing numbers.

With the average user spending nearly 54 minutes on the app daily, it’s hard to beat the hold that TikTok has among audiences. By optimizing your presence there, you can stand to generate some impressive returns on your marketing efforts.

So, what’s the best time to post on TikTok? The jury is out on this one – and it may take extra experimentation on your part to find the sweet spot that engages your audience.

Tuesday seems to rise to the top among the sources we consulted, with Wednesdays and Thursdays also getting recommendations. Generally speaking, it looks like midweek is a good time to test out your TikTok content, but there are plenty of discrepancies in the data.

While HubSpot named Friday as the best day, it also highlighted that Saturdays and Thursdays are strong for B2B brands, and Saturdays and Sundays work well for B2C brands.

Sprout Social found Sunday to be the worst performing day, while Monday and Tuesday are the worst days, according to HubSpot.

We also find a mix of recommended time slots, from early morning to mid-afternoon and also evening being suggested.

The Best Times To Post On Snapchat

Snapchat, the pioneer of ephemeral social media content (and the inspiration behind Instagram Stories), provides unique opportunities to reach younger demographics.

It differs from other platforms in how it works and the type of content that engages there. Snapchat typically centers around showcasing real-time experiences and authentic behind-the-scenes content versus polished marketing content.

This makes Snapchat an advantageous yet often underutilized tool in digital marketing. But it should not be overlooked, especially given that the platform continues to innovate.

While we have seen 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. cited as the best times to post on Snapchat in various secondary sources around the internet, we have found no recent original data to either confirm or refute this.

Given this, we would recommend testing out different times and days based on the behaviors and lifestyles of your target audience and then iterating based on your results (which is what you should be doing across the board, regardless!)

The Best Times To Post On Pinterest

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Wednesday to Friday 1-3 p.m. Local
HubSpot Friday 3-6 p.m. Local
CoSchedule Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday (in that order)

8 p.m. Local

  • Best times to post on Pinterest: 3-6 p.m.
  • Best day to post on Pinterest: Friday.
  • Worst day to post on Pinterest: Sunday.

Pinterest, once thought of as a simple inspiration board-style site, has today become a crucial player in the world of ecommerce.

Businesses can leverage Pinterest to showcase their products and drive conversions, but also to grow and expand brand awareness and sentiment.

Success on Pinterest can be found through sharing brand-specific imagery, optimizing for mobile, and appealing to your audience’s sense of aspiration and inspiration.

Friday, alongside other weekdays, is consistently mentioned as a strong day among our sources. On the other end, Sunday is commonly named as the least effective day for posting on Pinterest.

When it comes to the most fruitful posting time on the platform, it appears that the late afternoon to early evening, specifically around 3-6 p.m., is optimal for best engagement.

The Best Times To Post On X (Twitter)

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Tuesday to Thursday 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Monday and Wednesday 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. EST
CoSchedule Wednesday, Tuesday, and Friday (in that order) 9 a.m. Local
HubSpot Friday and Wednesday (in that order) 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Local
  • Best times to post on X (Twitter): 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
  • Best days to post on X (Twitter): Wednesday and Friday.
  • Worst day to post on X (Twitter): Sunday.

X (formerly known as Twitter) has long been a place for marketers to connect and engage with their audience, join trending conversations, and build community.

The real-time nature of X (Twitter) differentiates it from other social platforms and allows for spur-of-the-moment and reactionary marketing moves. And with CEO Elon Musk’s big plans for the app, it’s undoubtedly a space to watch.

When looking for the top days to post among the sources we consulted, Wednesday and Friday are most often mentioned – with Sprout Social specifying Tuesday through Thursday.

Hootsuite nominates Monday and Wednesday as the top days, proving that weekdays reign supreme on X (Twitter).

Like many other platforms, Sunday seems to be the least effective day for post-engagement.

Looking for the best times to post on X (Twitter)?

Late morning, from around 9 a.m. to noon, seems to be the most recommended time – though, as always, this will differ based on your specific audience and the type of content you are sharing.

We always recommend testing and experimenting to see what works for you.

The Best Times To Post On LinkedIn

Source Day Of Week Time To Post
Sprout Social Tuesday to Thursday 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Local
Hootsuite Monday 4 p.m. EST
CoSchedule Thursday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (in that order) 10 a.m. Local
HubSpot Monday, Wednesday, and Tuesday (in that order) 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. Local
  • Best times to post on LinkedIn: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
  • Best days to post on LinkedIn: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
  • Worst days to post on LinkedIn: Weekends.

Though first and foremost a platform for professionals, LinkedIn has picked up steam in recent years, becoming a hub of engagement and a frontrunner among social media networks.

It’s also an essential tool for businesses that want to reach business executives and decision-makers, as well as potential candidates.

Done right, LinkedIn content can go a long way in building a public perception of your brand and providing deep value to your target audience.

Digging into the data, we can see that weekdays provide the biggest opportunities for engagement on LinkedIn, which is hardly surprising. Tuesdays through Thursdays are often mentioned as the top days, with Mondays also highlighted by Hootsuite and HubSpot.

All of our sources agree that weekends are less effective for LinkedIn posts.

If you’re searching for the right time, you might try your hand at posting from late morning to mid-afternoon, based on what these sources discovered.

But (and not to sound like a broken record) your results may differ based on your brand, niche, target audience, and content.

What Is The Best Time For You To Post On Social Media?

Finding the best times to post on social media requires a delicate blend of testing, experimentation, and personal analytics.

And it never hurts to start your journey with industry insights like the ones we’ve covered in this article.

By aligning your content strategy with your target audience and trying out different posting strategies – taking into account these recommended time slots – you will be able to determine what works best for you and significantly enhance your social media presence and engagement.

Sources of data, November 2023.

All data above was taken from the sources below.

Each platform conducted its own extensive research, analyzing millions of posts across various social networks to find the times when users are most engaged.

Sources:

  • Sprout Social analyzed nearly 2 billion engagements across 400,000 social profiles.
  • Hootsuite analyzed thousands of social media posts using an audience of 8 million followers. For its Instagram updates, it analyzed over 30,000 posts.
  • CoSchedule analyzed more than 35 million posts from more than 30,000 organizations.
  • SocialPilot studied over 50,000 YouTube accounts and over 50,000 TikTok accounts to compile its data. 
  • Later analyzed over 11 million Instagram posts.
  • HubSpot surveyed over 1,000 global marketers to discern the best times to post on social media. For its Instagram-specific data, it partnered with Mention to analyze over 37 million posts.

More resources: 


Featured Image: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

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