Study: Facebook users engage more with posts after hours and at weekends

A new study into Facebook behaviour has revealed posts tend to see more engagement during weekends and after the 9-5 routine of many workers.

The study by TrackMaven offers social media marketing professionals some food for thought over when best to post updates and what to include in their posts. In total, the firm studied more than 5,800 Facebook pages and around 1.6 million posts for its Marketing Maven's Guide to Facebook research.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, actual posts on Facebook tend to drop in frequency over the weekend, but the study found the average engagement - measured by number of interactions per post - was actually much higher for posts on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday in particular sees the most engagement with an average of 2.72 interactions per post. Weekdays by comparison averaged out at around 2.27 interactions per post, effectively making a post on Sunday 25% more effective than one during the week.

The hour a post is published also has a major effect on the level of interaction. Most posts studied were added between the hours of 8am and 5pm, but actually the most engagement typically occurs between the hours of 5pm and 1am. With average interactions of 2.49 vs 2.24 during work hours.

TrackMaven director of marketing, Sabel Harris, said the data highlighted the most competitive times to post in order to get a post to the top of a user's News Feed

She said: "For example, let's say you check your Facebook Insights to see when your audience is online and most are online at 12 p.m. In our data set, we found that 12 p.m. is the most popular time for Facebook posts; however, they don't receive nearly as many interactions as a post after hours."

Interestingly, the study also shows Facebook posts with images to draw far more engagement than those without pictures, but also the use of hashtags - a feature the study reveals is hardly used by a vast bulk of posts - actually draws up to 60% more engagement than those without.

Internet Marketing News from ClickThrough - an integrated digital marketing agency offering web design services, web development, SEO, PPC, content, online PR and conversion optimisation.