The Social Media Facts and Figures you Need to Know about in 2019

When’s the best time to post? How many words should an ad have? Does video really get more engagement?

It’s like a continuous loop of questions, right? With the rate that social media changes, it’s hard to keep up and to be sure about what exactly works. Plus, if you manage a number of different accounts, you’ll know that what works for one won’t necessarily work for the other.

So, to help, we’ve taken a look at some of the common questions people ask about social media and rounded up some facts and figures to shed some light.

When is the best time to post?

You can almost guarantee that everyone you ask will have a slightly different answer to this one, based on their own personal experiences. If you’ve had several posts that went viral after posting between 12am and 1am, that will likely be your answer.

However, that doesn’t really shed light on the general question in hand. So, here’s the findings from a global report carried out by the Data Science Team at Sprout Social:

Facebook

• Optimum time to post: Wednesday at 12pm, 2pm, Thursday at 12pm and at 1pm
• Overall, Thursday is the best day in the week to post
• The ‘safest’ times to post are weekdays from 10am – 3pm
• Evenings and early mornings have the least engagement as well as Saturdays.

Instagram

• Best times to post are: Wednesday at 3pm, Thursday at 5am, 11 am, 3pm and 4 pm and Friday at 5am
• Like Facebook, Thursday is the best day to post
• The ‘safest’ times are Tuesday-Friday 9am-6pm
• Posts on a Sunday get the least amount of engagement.

Twitter

• Optimum posting time is Friday 9am to 10am
• Overall, Friday is the best day to post
• The ‘safest’ time to post is daily between 10am and 12pm
• The least amount of engagement is received on Sundays.

LinkedIn

• The best time to post is on a Wednesday from 3pm – 5pm
• The best day to post is Wednesday
• Tuesday to Friday is the best time to post engagement wise
• Friday to Monday is the worst time to post.

The report is well worth taking a look at as it breaks down the best time to post by sector too.

Remember, however, that these times are not gospel. If you find that you receive most engagement on a Sunday between 1pm and 3pm, that may well be your sweet spot.

Which platform holds the largest market share?

Facebook is still the most popular social media platform by some way. There are now 2.5 billion monthly active users and 1.4 billion daily active users on the platform, making it the go-to place to start when running social media advertising campaigns.

The beauty of Facebook is that it has constantly adapted to meet its users needs. Incorporating Facebook Live, Stories, Marketplace and most recently, Facebook Watch, it’s always introducing new features to meet ever-changing demands.

That’s not to say, however, that the other key players aren’t taking up their own chunk of the market…

Instagram: 800 million monthly active users and  500 million daily active users

Twitter: 330 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users

LinkedIn: 546 million registered users 200 million monthly active users

For stats on the other platforms click here.

What’s all the fuss with video?

Mark Zuckerberg revealed his ‘video first’ strategy back in 2017 stating that he saw video as a ‘megatrend.’ Ever since, he has been prioritising the medium across the company’s family of apps. Some observers are even suggesting that Facebook Watch will soon take over YouTube as the number one video streaming network.

So, here’s some stats to put this into perspective:

• 100 million hours of video are watched daily on Facebook
• 85% of videos are watched without sound on Facebook (think subtitles!)
• 45% of people watch over an hour of Facebook or Youtube videos each week

 

What are the best practices for advertising on social media in 2019?

Again, an ever changing part of social media, but, there are some key best practices which will be important to consider this year.

1. Be visual

Make the most of the few split seconds you have as your target customer scrolls over your ad. What do they want to see? It’s a proven fact that in order to be a success, ads on social media need to be visually striking.

2. A clear value proposition

What are you offering that person? Is it something they need or want? If not they’ll scroll straight past.

3. Relevancy

This is key. When creating your ad, always have relevancy at the forefront of your mind. People are showered with so many ads now on social media, you have to really hit on a pain point or emotion before a user even considers clicking.

4. Call to action

Make it clear. People won’t go out of their way to look for this unless your offer is seriously, irresistibly good. Even then, make your CTA obvious.

To sum up

Social media is an ever changing field, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep up. Staying abreast of current trends and understanding what works for you personally will help you to hit the sweet spot with followers and customers.