It doesn’t take high end statistical analysis to know that Americans use Facebook less on holidays, but when do they use it less, and when should my brand post our content on a holiday like July 4th?
Examining Facebook usage patterns on the 4th of July reveal that users had a fairly normal day until approximately 12:00pm CT. Users quickly dropped off in activity from 1pm until 10:30pm, when usage returned to normal.
Traffic dipped to the minimum level of activity at approximately 7:30pm. Maximum traffic occurred at approximately 10:30am, which is also the average maximum. Brands would be suggested to publish their content in line with the ideal peak time of 10:30am. For most brands (with average post lifetimes of three hours), posting at about 9:30am on the 4th of July should provide the greatest opportunity for success within the news feed.
How Did Brands Post On The 4th of July?
Brands posted to Facebook at a lower frequency compared to an average Thursday. Maximum posting activity occurred between 10:00am and 12:30pm. For many brands, this was too late for optimal news feed delivery.
Brands also had less posting activity than compared to a usual Thursday. Brands had their minimum activity at 7:30pm, while doing little to pick up activity for the rest of the night. This was a missed opportunity, as most users returned from their 4th of July activities and resumed normal activity at 10:30pm.
In general, brands used a standard Thursday strategy (aside from content and a few brands taking the day off) on the 4th of July, when in reality there were some missed opportunities. For brands that targeted the 10am time period, this was a highly competitive moment because most brands had one chance to reach their audience. Brands that traditionally dominate the news feed would be best served posting at this time period, while brands that must act savvy in lieu of larger competitors would be better served posting late in the evening.
Examining each of the past four Thursdays against the 4th of July shows that this holiday truly stood out. It should be noted that two of the previous Thursdays experienced significant spikes at 10am.
What Should Be My Strategy On The Upcoming Labor Day?
We’ve haven’t collected data on Labor Day yet, but we’re expecting similar behavior. If you’re a strong, successful brand, we’d recommend posting around 9:00am to take advantage of the uptick at 10:00am. The average post lives approximately 3 hours, this gives a powerful brand the opportunity to dominate the news feed for anyone trying holiday based content for the day.
For smaller and nimble brands who scrape for engagement, we’d suggest not posting a traditional holiday message at a “normal” time to avoid being drown out. We suggest crafting something for later in the evening around 9pm, when users return to Facebook to catch up for the day. If a smaller brand does opt to do something at a “normal” time, it’s imperative to create an absolutely unique holiday message to provide the greatest opportunity for success.
What Time Zone Is This?
This is presented in Central Time (GMT - 5:00). We chose Central Time to help balance between the East Coast and West Coast.
Where Did We Get This Data?
Using Facebook’s Public API, we monitor posting activity for both people and pages. We’ve developed a technique to segment baseline typical activity, and mostly American users. The data you’re seeing above is measured against typical behavior that we’ve monitored. We have the ability to split the monitoring between users and pages, which allow us to monitor the baseline activity. We’ve been monitoring this activity for several months, and have established baseline activity for each day of the week.
