DIY SocMed Cheat Sheet

If you're going it alone in managing your own social media, you may want to take the guesswork out of posting on social networks. Find out what works for YOU. Check out when related social entities are posting. Research when your target audience are more active on social media and which networks they are more active on.. Get yourself a social media manager or app. Try one of these:

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Sprout Social

Until you develop your own schedule,try this plan.

Facebook

• Best times to post: Thursday & Friday 12 noon - 2pm
How often to post: 1 - 2 times a day Post length: 100 - 250 characters

YouTube

• Best times to post: Thursdays and Fridays between 12 and 3pm.
• Worst time to post: Monday and Tuesday.
• Post length: Videos under 3 minutes & description 5,000 characters

Instagram

• Post length: 138-150 characters
• Best times to post: Wednesday & Thursday, 12am - 4pm
• How often to post: At least once a day

Twitter

• Best times to post: Friday mornings or Wednesday 3pm-5pm
• How often to post: 3 tweets a day, 5 tweets per day the optimal amount
• Post length: 80 - 140 characters

LinkedIn

• Best times to post: Tuesday to Thursday 3pm - 5pm
• How often to post: 2 - 4 times a week
  • Post length:
  • Company update: 700 characters
  • LinkedIn Publishing content length: ~120,000 characters

Pinterest

• Best times to post: 2am – 4am.& 2pm – 4pm. Also 5pm Fridays and 8pm –11pm Saturdays
• How often to post: 5 times a day is good, but no more than 10 times per day
• Post length: Pin description is 500 characters

Tumblr

• Best times to post: Monday to Thursday 7pm and 10pm, or any time Sunday with 4pm being most popular
• Nights are the busiest, no matter the day of the week.
• If you want less competition, mornings are slower

Snapchat

• Best times to post: 10pm - 1am
• Post length: 3-10 second full-screen vertical video ads
• How often to post: As much as you like, but not too much.

Which is best for what?

Facebook, Twitter are platforms for micro blogging, but also share videos and images onto user’s feeds. Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat utilise images and shorter videos. LinkedIn focuses more on B2B (business to business). Tumblr is used mainly for blogging.