Today, business owners increasingly use TikTok to reach out to their customers and promote their products and services. Which is natural, considering that this social media platform has made waves around the world, being downloaded over a billion times.
When it comes to reaching your target audience, the data you use is important in achieving maximum impact. One beauty of performance marketing is that you have so much data to work with – but how can you actually use the data to know what is the best time to post on TikTok?
With 850 million active users worldwide (that’s close to one in nine of the world’s population!), TikTok has many brands wanting that piece of the cake in their marketing efforts. Find out more about setting social media goals in our article here.
Today, it’s getting increasingly easy to “win the eyeballs” on TikTok – unlike the older social media platforms that thrive on algorithms, TikTok videos seem to be more impartial to users, frequently even making videos of new or random users viral. You may find that you will have an audience right away on TikTok, compared to Facebook and Instagram, where growth is typically known to be moderate – if you’re an active user, you may notice that hundreds of videos go viral every day.
Of course, if you’re a business, going viral may not be your key goal; instead, you would want a steady engagement rate that hopefully results in leads. TikTok can help you in this aspect too – and these business accounts are thriving! As a social media manager, you will need to see TikTok as a business necessity instead of a “fun to have” social media platform.
Oftentimes, when studying outreach strategies, social media marketers have a lot to consider, from tones to target audiences, budgets, frequency of postings, themes and more. One common question that surfaces is “when’s the best time to post”? Social media marketers and businesses alike have been on this topic – about best times to post on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to get more engagements with current customers, and build relationships with new ones. Could it be during rush hour during weekdays, or after dinner, or are business accounts actually active on weekends too?
Read on to find out the best times to post, and best practices when posting TikTok videos.
Best times to post on Facebook: What the experts say
How better to learn, than to learn from the pros who spent weeks or even months investigating different posting times? Some industry experts have done research and conducted their own experiments on what works for them. For example, here are some of social media management platform’s Hootsuite’s findings (Pacific Standard Time):
- Tuesday: 7 AM
- Thursday: 10 AM
- Friday: 5 AM
Influencer Marketing Hub came up with these findings:
- Monday: 6 am, 10 am, 10 pm
- Tuesday: 2 am, 4 am, 9 am
- Wednesday: 7am, 8 am, 11 pm
- Thursday: 9am, 12 pm, 7 pm
- Friday: 5am, 1 pm, 3 pm
- Saturday: 11 am, 7 pm, 8 pm
- Sunday: 7 am, 8 am, 4 pm
However, as Hootsuite emphasizes, recommended timings are just averages – usually averages that stem from research on different sources. Every audience and demographic will have its own unique activity patterns on TikTok. What you can do, however, is to use these suggested timings as a guideline to get started.
Once you’ve got an idea of what times are good for you, you can follow the tips below to identify posting times that will work best for your target audience.
Note: TikTok videos can go viral after a while – days, or even weeks after they have been posted. So, don’t get too discouraged if you don’t get too many views on your videos – the best is yet to come! Furthermore, as soon as you go viral with just one video, you might expect more views on your old videos, increased followers, and higher viewership on upcoming videos.
How to determine the best time to post on TikTok
So, we’ve gone through some tried-and-tested posting time recommendations. However, as you may know, audiences across the world and with their different demographics are unique, and there really isn’t a hard and fast rule on a posting time that works for everyone – otherwise every business would be posting at the same time and fighting for attention for a specific time. While there is no one-size-fits all solution to finding the best time to post content on TikTok, there are elements that you can explore to find the most ideal time for yourself or your business.
1. Go deep into analytics
Just like any other social media platform, the best way for you to find out what works for your audience is to harness the power of numbers. Head to your analytics page, where you analyze the performance of all your videos, as well as the audience that were engaged with your content.
The “video views” section, for example, gives you a clear view of the days your content gained the most traction. You can also see details such as how long users stayed to watch your video, where they live and more.
You can also get a TikTok Pro account, where you can obtain useful insights that are a level up from a regular account. According to TikTok, this tool offers content creators “greater visibility into how their videos are performing and resonating with fans. You will be able to track your performance so that you have the information you need to better connect with your community, and ultimately grow your page and increase engagement.
Some useful tools you will have access to include weekly and monthly views, follower growth and trending videos. We’ll be covering some of these in the subsequent points, so read on!
Source: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/pro-accounts-offer-new-insights-to-avid-creators
Here’s how you can switch to a Pro Account:
- Open the Privacy & Setting Tab from your profile page.
- Click on “Manage Your Account”.
- Tap on “Switch to Pro Account” and follow the steps from there.
Once your Pro Account is activated, you will find a new analytics button under your account options. Click on it, and explore a world of discoveries and possibilities to give your page a boost!
2. Find out where your audience is from
Depending on the nature of your business, you will be reaching out to audiences of different demographics, and such information matters greatly. For example, if you cater to a global audience, knowing where the bulk of the audience lives in is essential – based on their location, you can find out what time people are most active (for example, if they’re on their morning or evening commutes), or when they are not (during meal times and sleeping hours).
You will be able to access this feature through the analytics feature, whether you’re using a regular or Pro account. For the regular analytics, you can check out your audiences’ territories under every video you post. The Pro Account can do this too, and you can also check out your followers – simply head to the TikTok Analytics section and click on the “Followers” tab, and look for the territories section to get a breakdown of where your audience is based.
Source: https://www.shopify.com.sg/blog/best-time-to-post-on-tikok
3. Check when your followers are most active
Analytics sections of any social media platforms are pure gems – one key feature to look at is the Follower activity metric. There, you will be able to identify the days and time period when your audience was most active. With time, you will be able to use those timings as a guide when you decide when to post.
Source: https://www.shopify.com.sg/blog/best-time-to-post-on-tikok
4. Track your content’s performance
Likes, shares, comments and more – these elements are constant across all social media platforms, with the goal being to engage audiences.
After some time, you’ll realize that different types of posts receive varying levels of engagement. While it may sometimes be due to algorithms that even social media experts cannot fathom, it can sometimes also be due to the type of content you post. For example, a creative and funny “Get To Know Our Team” post can be many times more engaging than a typical product post.
5. Check out your competitors
As with every business, you’re fighting for a piece of the market pie with your competitors, and knowing what it takes to get a competitive edge is essential to your growth. Doing competitive analysis and learning from your competitors is one way towards success – doing this enables you to find out what works and improve on it even more; you can also see what doesn’t work, and try to figure out why. To do this, do up a list of direct competitors – that is – the businesses that address the same audience you are trying to reach out to.
Once you do this, you monitor their posting and engagement patterns
This also works for other aspects besides posting dates and times, so it’s great for your overall social media content marketing strategy. For instance, if you noticed that TikToks posted on weekends tend to do significantly better than others, you can take a leaf out of your competitors’ posting schedules to try on your own page. Then, monitor your analytics to see if these strategies work for you too.
6. Create a system for tracking
With so much data, you’ll need something to keep you on track, so that you can easily see what works and what doesn’t. It may not sound like the most extiving thing in the world, but numbers and analytics are indeed key to any business and social media account. You may like to explore some social media monitoring tools such as Social Pilot, Exolyt, TikLog and Pentos.
Not ready to sign up for an account? If you’d like to create your own spreadsheet, here are some metrics you may want to record and analyze.
- Posting data and time
- Video title
- Views
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Reach
- Average watch time
- Traffic Source
- Primary and Secondary Audience Territories
Read more about understanding your TikTok analytics here.
7. Find a pattern
Once you have information on the first few points, here’s where you can get your inner Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew into action. For example, look at your top few high-performing content. Is there any pattern between them, and the posting day and time (especially during times where your audience is most active)?
Here’s a tip: Don’t just look at the views – they may just be the algorithm at work. Instead, look deeper into your numbers. For example, which videos have the most shares and comments, and the longest view duration times?
Once you find those patterns, you’re on your way to posting right!
8. Make adjustments when necessary
Like with any other social media platform, no strategy has a fixed rule – especially when TikTok is relatively new to the social networking scene. Your audience’s tastes and preferences also change all the time – and these days especially, they can change really quickly. So, always be on your feet!
Social media marketing is an ongoing process, so all your social network marketing strategies, including posting schedules, will evolve over time. Perhaps there’s a new trend in the online space, a celebrity just raved about something, or your audience simply grew into a new phase. Thus, regular monitoring is necessary – should you notice a dip in engagement or performance, go through the above-mentioned tips to suss out new prime times for posting your videos.
Tip: Engagement is so much more about posting times – do look at refining your content or look for new strategies to draw your audience in.
With time, you may wind up finding that there actually is no set rule for when exactly to post on TikTok, and success requires observation, analysis, a significant volume of trial and error – and sometimes, a certain degree of luck. But with data insights and the right management, you’re in a pretty good place to grow. Here’s to bringing your TikTok Page to greater heights!