Does the time of day affect your social media traffic?

As more and more small businesses take advantage of social media marketing, they are also discovering that there are many nuances to it. A recent research study performed by social media giant LinkedIn, found that well over 80% of all businesses, large and small, have a social media presence. In addition, LinkedIn found that nearly 95% of them have developed and employed social media marketing strategies.

The vast majority use social media for lead generation and for name recognition branding. Also, around 75% of the companies surveyed were increasing their budgets for their social media marketing strategies and tactics. They understand the significance of the platforms and understand that it is vital to their future growth and sustainability.

With regard to drawing in new customers, businesses across the board are finding social media to be extremely effective. The successful also understand that all of the platforms are different with different demographics as well as protocols and behaviors. The business audience is crucial to LinkedIn and the vast majority of its membership is business owners and professionals. Such other social media giants as Facebook and Twitter would love to carve a chunk off of that potential advertising base. While there are over 25 million businesses with Facebook pages, only a million of them or so actually advertise on Facebook.

Social media marketing success depends on many things including the ability to know and understand each platform and how to use it to drive traffic to your site. That is the whole purpose of your social media marketing strategy. Once there, your site’s sole purpose is to convert that traffic into sales. If neither place is doing that for your business, it is time to throw out your current strategy and try a different approach.

The time of day can affect your ability to reach potential customers and drive them to your site. The early afternoon, generally between 1PM-4PM is when most Facebook and Twitter users are engaged. Things have slowed down a bit at that time for most people and they can put aside a small chunk of time to be active at those sites.

Believe it or not, afternoon drive time, between 5PM-6PM, is the most active time at Instagram. As for the three other major players, Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest, the early evening between 7PM-11PM is when you should post fresh content to grab the largest engaged audience.

Social media marketing can be a huge boon to your business especially as it relates to generating new business and growth. Know the sites, know their behaviors and know the best time to engaged them and you should have little trouble driving traffic.