Study reveals social media sharing peak times

by Stratton Craig

image overlay

According to new research from online advertising company RadiumOne, posts published on social platforms between 10am and 12pm, and later between 8pm and 10pm, are more likely to be shared than posts published at other times. Interestingly, in the UK sharing is common at about 6pm as well, as commuters travel home, but there is no such peak in activity recorded in other countries surveyed, the Drum reports.

While those times show the average peaks of sharing across all major social networking sites, the survey also notes that different platforms have different times at which activity picks up the most. Twitter users tend to share the most at about 1pm, whereas Facebook users are most active around 5pm. By contrast, Google+ activity peaks at about 10am, while posting on Pinterest is likely to be most fruitful at about 11pm.

During the respective peak times on different social networks, the most shared content was related to arts and entertainment, technology, health and fitness, business and politics, suggesting that those categories enjoyed the biggest popularity among all users and platforms, the research found.

RadiumOne says that the results from the research are based on 10,000 content producers and they not only focus on different social media but also look at the differences according to the type of device used. Findings reveal that desktop computer usage peaks at 9pm, while mobile users are most engaged with their smartphones at 10pm and tablets at about 1pm.