As if this whole social media winning combination wasn’t’ hard enough to figure out already, link tracking service bit.ly has published their findings on the best and worst times to publish in social media accounts.Their findings show that different sites have different optimal posting times, making it even more important to tailor your postings to each individual site.

If you are a devoted tweeter, you should be posting your most important content between 1 pm and 3pm Eastern (10 am to 1 pm Pacific). This will give you the best click rate, especially early on in the week. For best results, you should avoid posting after 8 pm throughout the week, and 3 pm on Fridays

Twitter will require a little more upkeep to be successful as the half life of a post is about 2.8 hours

To reach your fans on Facebook, you should post between 1 pm and 4 pm to get the most interaction to your post. The best time overall to post during the week is at 3 pm on Wednesday

According to bit.ly, although traffic on Facebook begins to increase around 9 am, it’s best to wait until 11 am to post your update. Similarly to twitter, traffic from Facebook begins to wane after 4 pm, and posting should be avoided altogether after 8 pm and before 8 am

If you are taking advantage of the benefits of  Tumblr, you will be on a completely different schedule. To get the best results here, you will need to wait until at least 4 pm Eastern, and posting after 7 pm will help get you the best return on your investment.

While it’s not the best idea to post on a Friday evening with Facebook and Twitter, this is the time that Tumblr will give you the best opportunity to post.

So what does all of this information mean? Mainly that each social networking site has it’s own culture, and each community has its own habits that you will have to adjust your strategies to. By analyzing the times your posts get the most attention, and maybe by doing some experimenting, you will be able to find the formula that works best for your network of people.

Because each site has different optimal posting times, it’s best to set up a schedule of when you will post on each social media site and stick to it. Setting up reminders will help you stay on track, and help you make the most out of your valuable time.

What is the time of day that you get the most results from your posts? We’d love to hear your feedback and see what has been working for you.

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